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2.5 stars

I wish I could have liked this book, as it can be difficult to find stories that deal with fairies or other traditions outside of British, Greco-Roman, or Norse mythologies. From a technical standpoint, there is nothing wrong with this book. The language is good, even poetic, and has some great imagery. Unfortunately, it also did not hold my attention very well so it was a bit of a push to finish it. I was JUST curious enough to keep going to see how things panned out, but not enough to want to read more.

Out of the two main characters, I kind of liked the boy Sasha, but aside from being a very nice and loyal person, he's kind of bland. His companion Pyetr is mostly annoying throughout the story with few (if any) redeeming features, which makes me wonder why Sasha sticks by him. The "romance" that develops between Pyetr and the rusalka (the banshee-like river ghost of a murdered woman) is love in name only and has no real basis. As for the plot, not much actually happens. They pretty much spend time walking through the wood, staying in a house, then walking through the woods some more. I might not have minded this, except that I didn't care about the characters and the conversations they had were pretty much variations of the same theme ("Should we stay or should we go?"), ad nauseum. The magic system looked like it could have been interesting, since it's based on "wishing" and the unintended consequences that make using magic dangerous. But it quickly becomes so vague and confusing that I no longer knew what was possible, how or why things were happening, or even what the rules were anymore. Needless to say, I don't plan on reading any more books in this series; the first one was quite enough.