The Uncrossing

I got this dumb little smile on face and it's because of this book. This book was just so damn adorable. Luke and Jeremy just made my heart all sorts of happy. Of course, it had its serious moments and there were moments where I wanted to smack Luke and Jeremy but overall, I couldn't be happier with this book.

Luke has the gift of being able to uncross someone. I'm sure most of you have seen a Supernatural, where Sam and Dean are hunting witches and they have to find hex bags. Well the concept is similar. Luke can find those hex bags and cleanse the person or building of the hex. Cool right? Because I thought this was very cool. As for Luke as a character, I liked him. He was stuck up but I personally didn't mind it. It fit him and his friends and family certainly weren't afraid to knock him down a peg or two. And I think he did a lot of good for Jeremy, even if they fought a lot.

Jeremy is a precious cinnamon roll and must be protected at all costs. I never call anyone a cinnamon roll so that goes to show how much I adored this character. My heart hurt for this poor guy because of his secret, he couldn't really live a normal life. He has family that kind of accepts him/kind of doesn't in terms of him being gay. He basically has lived his life thinking that being gay and feminine is bad. I just wanted to reach into the book and tell him that he is perfect the way he is. Why can't people just accept others the way they are.

The world building was very cool. It combined the real world, with mentions of Instagram, Snapchat and saying "drag me" (which I have no idea what that means at all) and combining it with old world magic and old families. The side characters were well done. They weren't just placed there for the sake of being. Overall, I'm really impressed with this book and I'm anxious to see what else this author does.

This book had me hooked right with the first sentence.

I'm always impressed when that happens, *especially* when its a genre I'm not that into, which in this case means fantasy YA. But I had seen the cover and was intrigued even before seeing several enthusiastic reviews on Goodreads, so I decided I'd give this a try, and I am glad I did.

The whole story is set in New York, and in this New York, there is magic. Different families rule or protect different areas - and Luke's family is protected by the Kovrovs. Luke himself is very good at "uncrossing", that is, undoing curses - and the summer where the story is set he works for the Kovrovs, doing odd jobs while getting closer to Jeremy, the youngest Kovrov brother. And getting closer to Jeremy leads to having to figure out how to do Luke's most important uncrossing yet..

I loved the characters and the setting, and while I can be a grumpy curmudgeon about this, I found their teenage awkwardness about falling in love utterly sweet and adorable while not being teethachingly cute (which is to say it never got too much). The way the plot unravelled took me by suprise and kept me on edge right until the end, and speaking of which, I *loved* the ending. I also liked the magic system, or what we got to see of it - I actually wouldn't have minded a closer look at the world and how everything works - as interesting as it was it was a bit frustrating at times to get only short glimpses rather than the big picture, although I much prefer the way it's done here to several pages of exposition. I would have liked to know more about stuff like schools and such- everything that happens to Luke and Jeremy felt oddly isolated. I think that is the only complaint I have - while there are some interesting side characters and while they do go out occasionally, it never felt like the story and the characters were grounded in the world around them. I don't know how to explain it better, but in that sense it lacked depth that might have made this even better.

I still highly enjoyed this and would recommend this to anyone looking for a good urban fantasy YA story.

I fell in love with this book after the first ten pages. That doesn’t really happen to me, and the last book that gave me such a ride and the need to both slap and hug the characters was Nora Sakavic’s The Foxhole Court. No other book has called my attention this way since then, and anyone who knows me knows exactly what that means.

Uncrossing is about magic, love, fate, choices, and surprisingly the mob. The story follows two characters: Luke Melnyk and Jeremy Kovrov. Or rather, it follows two stories connected by Jeremy and Luke.

Luke Melnyk comes from a family rooted in magic, and his speciality is to undo crossings (what we commonly see as “curses”). His twin sister Camille, on the other hand, can cast the nasties crossings on anyone.

Jeremy Kovrov is crossed, but his crossing is something that Jeremy and Camille have never seen before. And which cannot be uncrossed. At least, not by conventional means.

The first note I wrote on this book is that it had a very good exposition. It never felt like it was taking your hand and guiding you through things, or being didactic. Instead, you are dropped in the middle of a story that started years, and years ago, and are trusted to be able to catch up and understand. And trust me, you will.

The characters are incredibly real, flawed, and alive. They might not jump out of the pages all of the time, but they all have multiple layers that you can’t help but want to understand. Even the characters you dislike (and trust me, you will dislike a couple of them intermittently) have more dimensions to them than the ones that might annoy you.

Luke and Jeremy are the characters that you’re supposed to follow along, as they are the focused of the narrator’s POV, but thankfully that doesn’t mean that the rest of the characters are abandoned or underdeveloped. Usually, in MLM fiction, female characters tend to be butchered or made smaller, to benefit the male characters, but here it’s not like that at all. Camille, Helene, Natalya, Katya, and Marta all have their own stories, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, and they never appear to be an afterthought.

And the characters are not perfect! That is so uncommon to find! Not just: this character is clumsy, or this character is too wise or perfect so they are unperfect. No. Alexei is too self-involved, Sergei is… Sergei is too conservative and lowkey homophobic/racist. The Melnyks are too overprotective. And everyone is going behind everyone’s backs thinking they know better and have the answers/solutions for things.

At the beginning, some of the dialogues felt strange or a bit stilted, but it was only because of the context. Every character has different ways in which they talk, and they all vary according to who’s there with them, and when the Kovrovs are around the dialogue will always be a bit awkward and stiff.

The world building is very good, with bits and pieces of lore and history guiding the story, and then mentions of social networks, college, and celebrities to remind you that this is happening right now. It does leave some questions unanswered, but I believe that it simply adds to the feeling of entering in the middle of something that was already rounded and alive.

And at the heart of it: The distinction between predetermination (fate), and will (your choices) was the thing that fully sold me on this idea. The fact that the root of the romance between Jeremy and Luke was a choice, and what they wanted, as opposed to a written-in-the-stars kind of thing, was amazing. I would say that “choices” are the cornerstone of this story, everyone had different choices they could’ve made that might have drastically changed the course of the narrative at every turn, and these are acknowledged in the inner dialogue of the characters “why did I do that? Why didn’t I say this?”, or in some cases “that was the only say this?”, or in some cases “that was the only choice I could realistically make”.

I absolutely adored the book, and I will 100% not shut up about it, anytime soon.

The uncrossing is a unique and interesting story. It had me guessing right to the end.

Crossing is to curse so uncrossing is to uncurse. Luke has a gift just like his sister. They are opposites. Luke can Uncross almost any curse. Jeremy is the one puzzle he can't work out.

Two powerful families control the magic in New York. Jeremy belongs to the Kovrov family. They are known to protect their own and be ruthless. Luke is aware of the dangers when he starts working with the family, but the opportunity is too good to turn down. He works alongside Jeremy and can't help but be interested in the puzzle which has taken over his life.

Jeremy has always had a thing for Luke. He thinks he is the answer to his prayers. Everyone can see the crush Jeremy has. Everyone expects Luke.

Uncrossed is a gay romance novel with a complex fantasy storyline. The story is creative and I found it really interesting.

4.5 Stars out of 5. It's different and I haven't read anything similar.

*ARC received in exchange for an honest review. My blog tour stop with Chapter by Chapter will be on the 13th October and will include an interview with the lovely author*