3 and a half stars. very interesting book, by a writer i really like. two worlds collide in this one, the very real world of Muay Thai boxing (17-year-old Jade's specialty), and a more evanescent supernatural one, a Thai forest inhabited by immortal animal spirits that is being used for nefarious purposes by an evil man, till it is claimed by a half-spirit 12-year-old child (Mya) who can move from one dimension to another. the two worlds don't entirely work next to each other - Jade's real world is so specific and her voice is so strong it overtakes the narrative and renders the other world too fragile to quite come alive - but that forest is nonetheless fascinating (especially when it appears in New Jersey), the combination is ambitious, and i was really engaged by Jade's point of view and by her whole story. the whole thing might make a terrific coming of age TV series, with lots of boxing and detecting action (catching the bad guy isn't easy) and a fantastic otherworld to enter and explore. ( )

3.5/5 stars. ( )

This book has two different halves that have nothing to do with each other. One half is awesome, the other isn't.

The one that's awesome is about Jade, an MMA fighter that goes to Thailand for some training (and to avoid a possible arrest after beating up an MMA fame whore). Holy cow, let me repeat that. A book about a girl American Mixed Martial Artist who travels half a world away to the land of Muay Thai for further training and a chance at a title shot. Doesn't that sound awesome? Doesn't that sound like no other book you've ever heard before? It did to me.

But the other half has nothing to do with this. It's about a girl who can teleport through plants who's being exploited by some rich white guy holed up in Thailand to deliver drugs and human traffic to various parts of the world undetected. It's not even the same genre as the Jade story. It's a dark fantasy with Thai mythology and beliefs about reincarnation and ghost/spirits and animals. Not what I came in for. And neither character has any relation to the other, either in spirit or plot. They just... meet... at the end.

I would so love this book if this part was excised. Each half has nothing to do with each other, it feels like it was shoehorned in to increase length. I just want to hear about Jade. I care about Jade. I'm interested in Jade. Not some girl who can walk through walls and the old rich white guy "big bad". I can go to X-Men for that. The tonal difference is too jarring. That keeps this book from being one of the best I've read. ( )