The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray is the last of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, preceded by A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels.

Gemma grew up in India with a father that adored her and a mother who loved her fiercely but with whom she couldn't help to argue all the time. On the day of her 16th birthday something extraordinary happened to Gemma: she had her first vision, that of her mother killing herself before being taken by some strange dark force.

That was almost a year ago, since then Gemma and her father have come to England where Gemma attends the Spence Academy and where she has discovered the realms and the truth about her mother's past. The realms are a beautiful but terrible place where magic once ran wild, until Gemma bound it to herself.

It turns out there are still many secrets to the realms, secrets Gemma doesn't understand yet and which will prove to be very dangerous.

I liked the book, it was well written but I felt like there was a little bit too much of it, the book went around in circles for quite a bit there and it took a while before things began to get more clear.

One thing I did like was the relationship between Kartik and Gemma.

The same things bother me though, as in A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels, Gemma lets herself be pushed around by her friends Felicity and Pippa (Ann doesn't fare much better than Gemma in that regard).

But, over all it was a good book.

About the end, well, I'm not sure that I liked it all that much from the romance point of view but it was a good ending, it was sad but hopeful. Bittersweet.

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