This book was entertaining and a solid ending to the duology, however…

The publishing company did her dirty. There are tons of grammatical errors, missing words and copy-pasted sentences. I have no idea how this was published in the state it was. The acknowledgements talk of about a deadline and her having a hard time writing what she wanted. Everything made sense after that. I can’t believe this happened and the book suffered for it. It could have been really good, but all it did was upset me that it came out like this.

Now the actual story was not bad, not as well thought out as the first book and I think that’s because of the aforementioned issues but I still enjoyed it.

After falling through the mirror Jack and Kallia have to find a way out and back home. Meanwhile Demarco is trying to get in to help her out. It’s a different world in the mirror; Magicians are trapped in an illusory city run by a tyrant masquerading as a show-runner. His true motives are unknown and not explored enough. Essentially he wants to open the gate to all magic so he can escape the mirror world but conflicting histories make it seem unsafe to do so.

Kallia goes through a lot in this book. She has some interesting character moments and really grows in the narrative. Circumstances cause her to lose her magic (mostly) and she has to rely on others to get things done. Given her personality, it is difficult for her to do this but she ultimately finds true friendship once she does.

Demarco discovers some interesting facts about his family history and the plot twist everyone saw coming happens. He is mostly relegated as the outside perspective of the mirror world and his sections leave much to be desired. He attempts to try and save Kallia though most have given up and though his determination is admirable, he doesn’t do much at all. The internal struggle he has with his ability to steal others’ magic is interesting, but is not enough to carry his character.

Jack’s origin is discussed here and he gets a bit more development as well. While it is intriguing and his actions within the world seem morally gray, his character arc still doesn’t come to a very satisfying conclusion. I wanted more out of him, and because his moments felt mostly half-baked I was unable to fully comprehend his character.

The overall plot was all over the place and it was hard to keep turning the pages. The world was so interesting and the way it was all crafted in the first book painted a mysterious picture of a fantastical world. The revelations in this book were not fully thought out and it is easy to tell with the way things were cobbled together.

I wish the author had the time she needed to write this as it could have been awesome but unfortunately its potential was squandered because of corporate obligation. I am surprised to find this type of oversight is affecting the literary industry as well. I hope this practice stops as the art generally suffers for it.