About This Book
Reach for this book when your teenager is grappling with the intense, sometimes volatile emotions of a first serious relationship or the fear that a loved one is changing into someone they no longer recognize. It serves as a high stakes metaphor for the ways people can lose themselves to trauma or external pressures, and the difficult realization that love alone cannot always fix a person's problems. Following a car crash and a kidnapping, Link must navigate a dangerous world of magic to rescue Ridley, only to find she has been fundamentally altered by her captors. While the setting is fantastical, the emotional core deals with loyalty, the search for identity, and the complex transition from adolescence into adulthood. Parents will find it a useful gateway for discussing healthy boundaries, the importance of a support system, and how to maintain one's own sense of self when a partner is in crisis. Due to some mature themes and supernatural violence, it is best suited for older middle schoolers and high school students who enjoy urban fantasy.
