I won a copy of this book through a LibraryThing giveaway. It arrived beautifully packaged, with a letter from the author and his daughters, and a silver quill pen. I can tell the author put a lot of love into this book but sadly the story did not live up to its potential. The writing read like a first draft and would have benefited from an editor, both for the length of the book and the writing itself. It was very hard to get into the story and ultimately I chose to put the book aside instead of laboring through to finish it.

Overall I enjoyed my read of the Pennymores. I thought the design was original and the characters were well written. However, I did struggle with the pacing of the book. I felt that the author would spend a fair amount of time at one location and then would jump quite suddenly to another location. He would then spend little time there and jump into another location. This pacing made it hard to follow the storyline at times. In addition, I felt like I missed a good rise to the climax of the story. This story almost could have been multiple books to help develop the story further. Therefore, if you are interested in the premise, I would say go for it but this book would not go on my "read it again" pile.

I had a difficult time finishing this one, which is a shame, because it was clearly written with a lot of love. The author's children are the main characters, and the book gives them a nice little adventure. Unfortunately, that adventure appears to be stitched together from other, established stories, and overburdened with the heavy-handed message of the importance of reading. My real disappointment is that I wanted to like this book more than I did. ( )

The premise of this book is that reading, writing, and education contain actual magic. The fear of magic creates a culture that celebrates illiteracy leading to persecution, and fear. I am so utterly fascinated by that idea. What kind of world does that create? How can something so basic and necessary be totally avoided? My whole world is covered in ads, labels, and even price tags, so how can anyone function in a world without?

The story dives right in with magical events and I had a really hard time getting to know the lay of the land. I spent the first third of the book in total confusion about how this world works and I don’t really feel like I ever caught up. Often, I had to read paragraphs or even entire chapters over again to figure out what was happening.

Although I started this book with really excitement and curiosity, I quickly found myself too exhausted and confused to keep going. I can feel that the author poured meaning and soul into the themes of this story. I feel that this is a book I SHOULD like, but as of today, I just don’t.

I really wanted to like this one, but it was difficult to get into and confusing at times. This made the things about the book like the interesting characters and worldbuilding harder to enjoy. The plot can have a lot of tangents that are hard to follow, and characters other than the sisters are not fleshed out well.

However, I do think this book has many sparkling moments, and I think the author can grow and have this series be something truly special. Reading the first books in series like Harry Potter can be a little rough at times but they grow and develop. I think this one can do the same thing. I will be reading other books in the series and hope to see the brilliant parts shine even brighter.