2018 book 10

Kamilla Benko's The Unicorn Quest
Benko's debut is, for the most part, a well written and engaging MG fantasy portal novel, where a younger sister follows her older sister (who is in remission from an unnamed disease) into a fantasy world, where different factions have different magical abilities and where unicorns once loved but now are gone. With the help of two new friends and her lucky pencil, she must track down her older sister and maybe find out more about these unicorns along the way. The author occasionally leans too heavily on the art metaphors (the protagonist is a young artist), and I found the epilogue a bit frustrating but inevitable for all that—still, I liked these characters enough that when the sequel comes out, I will most likely read it. B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 30th.