Forest of the Fae: Devlin's Door is about a young girl who is forced to spend the summer with relatives whom she does not enjoy being around. Upon Anne's arrival, her cousin Lexie makes her life there unpleasant. Anne is sure that nothing exciting will happen, until Lexie lures her to Devlin, a ghost town that has long been abandoned, and holds some kind of enchantment. Anne finds a diary written by a young girl named Grace, and as she begins reading, magic starts to happen and mysteries emerge. The town wasn't abandoned, but has been trapped, and the townspeople were trapped in a place hidden from humans.
It's a very unique storyline and the first half of the book I absolutely loved! Kibbee's characters are well developed and likeable, even the not so nice ones. And the world she creates is so unlike any other that I've encountered. It's fast paced and a quick read.
I did enjoy this book, although I'm not sure what to say about it. When I first received it from Free Book Friday, I was very excited! The whole fantasy world sounded amazing and I couldn't wait to dive in. Once I started reading, I immediately fell in love with her characters and the abandoned town known as Devlin. But halfway through the book we are thrown into a whole other world inhabited by faeries. I found certain parts hard to follow due to an overabundance of descriptions. Normally, using a lot of descriptives is great, but at some points I felt there was too much, especially when it was during a fast paced scene. I found myself re-reading certain paragraphs and pages. I was also hoping to understand the world of the faeries a bit more, but other than certain brief encounters, I'm still unsure of exactly what they are.
I definitely enjoyed the first half of the novel a lot more than the second. I connected a lot more with it and loved how the town was starting to come to life. But once Anne and Grace entered the Forests of the Fae, I found my excitement weaned and there was so much to follow even with only a few characters, that the flow was a bit off for me. I wish the author would have stayed with the story in the abandoned town, although I understand the storyline and appreciate the web it entails.
That being said, I did enjoy the majority of the book and I am glad I read it. If I really didn't like it then I wouldn't have finished it, but I did. And now the author has left us with a cliffhanger for another book, so I'm sure I will search it out once it is published.
