Bones of Faerie

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner (Random House) is the story of Liza, who lives in a U.S. Midwest devastated by a war between humans and faeries. She has to be very careful to stay away from magic, and her hometown has done everything it can to create a safe space to live within the natural, dangerous, magical world. But when people starting showing signs of magic, are they all in more danger than ever before, both from magic and from themselves?

I thought this was very prettily-written and nicely world-built, but in a poetic way; we're not checking off points on a map to see how they would correspond so much as getting sights and smells. I thought the pacing was right for the length of the book, too.

I was a bit confused by whether two particular characters were the same person and exactly what had happened to the mom character, and a little bit why the quest was entirely the protagonist's; I might chalk that up to having had to read several books with similar themes all at the same time, so I was confused in general (kids, don't try that at home--it's no fun). Anyway, I am really in admiration of the verdant world here--a world where people and fae went to war, a world where nuclear weapons destroyed a layer of the world, and a world where the plants are some of the most dangerous things lurking in the forest.