Summer

Most of what I had to say on this series, I said in answer to Twilight. I love this story; it's an indulgence in comfortable escapism for me. The writing took a lot for me to get over - at least 100 pages of the first book, far more than I would have put up with if a friend hadn't been so fired-up for me to read and love this - but in the end something about the story won out. It's comfortable in the way that cheesy sitcoms and sappy movies are... it's giving up the real world for something that's nice to curl up in for a while.

This was the first book for younger-than-teen-ish kids I'd read of Meg Cabot's, and I wasn't quite sure what I'd think of it. Totally loved it, though! The story was not predictable and the writing was very enjoyable. Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to reading more of the series.

This book didn't grab me right at the start, but it wasn't bad, and it was a fairly solid read. “solid” seems the best word for it. I enjoyed it, and there were quite a few things I took away to think about after I'd read it.

I very much enjoyed this book, but what seemed to me to be inconsistencies in tense (sometimes past, sometimes present) really distracted me. The switches in tense may have been correct for when each bit was set in the time frame of the moment; I lost track, so I'm not sure. Either way, though I found it very distracting from an otherwise quite enjoyable read. Four stars but for the distraction.

I loved this book. For me, someone who feels like an awkward outsider to a game my friends seem to understand way better than I do, this helped a lot of the pieces make sense to me. The sidebars and pink boxes provided welcome breaks between absorbing a lot of information, and I liked the storytelling about the author's non-d&d friends, and her d&d group. It helped me understand better. And while I know some found the pink and the shopping and the ubergirlyness of this book grating, I loved it. It made the book and its subject far less intimidating to me.
My only wish is that they would release an updated version to go with D&D version 4. This book was written for the previous edition, and as I understand it there are differences. I'm still a huge newbie, though, so maybe not.