Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

2,5 stars

I wanted to love this book but there was just too much going on in a short amount of time. Also the age of the main character just didn't make sense and I am not sure why this is marketed as a middle school book. I think I am a little too old to be reading this book and that might be why I didn't enjoy it as much

First l must thank NetGalley as well as the publisher for me eARC in exchange for my honest review. Once was, once wasn’t the start of a great story. A wonderful YA novel, full of myth, wonder, and adventure. A story full of the past and loss that finishes with the only answer to all that we have read.. a wonderful debut!

Onc there was is a fantastic new middle grade, focusing on an Iranian girl and her father as they care for magical animals. I love hearing about the mythologies and legends from other cultures around the world.

I loved this diverse read filled with mythical and fantastical animals and stories. This is a coming of age story on which Marjan finds her purpose and place in the world. In so doing, she realises that she does not have to work alone - and that she does not have to do things as her father did.

Brilliant, dark and dangerous and angry

Marjan Dastani is an orphan. Her mother died of cancer when she was eight years old. Her mother's death broke Marjan and it broke her father Jamsheed. Eight years passed, then her father was murdered. That was three months ago. Marjan is still grieving, and hers is not a gentle grief. Marjan does not grieve gentle -- she grieves hard and she grieves angry.

Marjan's father was a veterinarian. He had a small, struggling practice in Berkeley. Marjan, being still in High School, has no formal training in veterinary practice. Her father, however, let her watch while her treated animals, and even asked her assistance. Even without formal training, Marjan is a practically trained vet.

Marjan's father frequently left Marjan to herself for days or a week while he left town on unexplained trips. Now, months after her father's death, she receives a phone call, and a request to travel to England (along with a first-class air ticket). At the airport a dignified English gentleman meets her. He takes her to his country estate, where she meets what the publisher's blurb describes as "a charming British boy who grew up with a griffon". This is her first intimation that the magical creatures of the Iranian folktales her father used to tell her are real, and that she has a gift that allows her to understand them.

The story proceeds apace. Marjan meets and helps more magic creatures. She learns more about the shadowy organizations that watch over the creatures and call on her to help them. The publishers open their description of Once There Was with the words

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them meets Neil Gaiman in this thrilling novel about an Iranian American girl who discovers that her father was secretly a veterinarian to magical creatures—and that she must take up his mantle, despite the many dangers."

This is not inaccurate, but pay attention to the words "thrilling" and "dangers". Once There Was is not a warm, cuddly children's book full of cute magical animals with big anime eyes. It is a thriller, and it feels dangerous. The creatures are not warm and cuddly. One of them, indeed, is the stuff nightmares are made of. There are people who want to burn everything down and start the world all over again.

To me, far more than Fantastic Beasts or anything by Neil Gaiman, Once There Was resembles A Wrinkle in Time. Marjan, like Meg, is a brilliant, broken, angry girl, on whom the burden of saving "humans and beasts in the gravest of danger" falls hard.

I give this book a five star rating not because it is perfect, but because it is brilliant. It is not perfect. It is Kiyash Monsef's debut novel. He is not new to creative writing, "Kiyash Monsef is an Emmy Award nominated producer and director; a writer of short stories, videos, comic books, and games; and a designer of innovative conversational and voice interface experiences." But there is no denying some rough edges. Like A Wrinkle in Time, Once There Was is not a feel-good book <spoiler>until the very end</spoiler>. It is dark and dangerous and, at times, scary.

Once There Was is not for everyone. But it is brilliant, and I certainly want to read more from Monsef.

I thank NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an advanced reader copy of Once There Was. This review expresses my honest opinion. To be released 4-Apr-2023.

This book is good for those that just want to consume more fantasy with a young character but I can't say many praises about it.

The character is fifteen and living alone which is the first thing that bothered me. She is very angsty for a middle grade novel and it's hard for a tween audience to connect to especially when the groundwork for the character's relationships have been barely established. Even if the book was switched to target a young adult audience, the character is so inconsistently childish yet so paradoxically independent at the same time. She shouldn't have been able to inherent the veterinary immediately as well since she's only fifteen. Why isn't she living with other family members? It's one thing if the character was taken into an institution that takes care of her but she's alone which means she has to do housework, groceries, doctors appointments and other logistics that get glossed over in the book. Her reactions to new magical creatures is either straight up acceptance or straight up disbelief. There's no consistency to her character and it just puts me off as a reader that's just looking for a fantasy story with worldbuilding. The character doesn't feel like enough research was put into what it was like to emotionally connect to a teenage girl or even a tween child.

I cannot reccomend this book to customers as it does not hit the mark for either YA or middle grade audiences as it tries to aim for both but by doing so it hits no audience.

Beautiful and magical. I read this book and then my son (15) snatched my kindle and read it too! We both found it utterly enthralling.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

I decided not to finish this book at 35%, but I don't think it's a bad book - just not something I'm in the mood for, and haven't been for the last few weeks that I've been reading it. HOWEVER, I do think that this book would be perfect for middle grade/young adult fantasy lovers. Here's why:

Marjan is in high school and recently became an orphan. Her mom died a few years ago from illness, but her dad's recent death was completely unexpected. After he dies, she learns that he wasn't just a regular veterinarian, but rather, one who worked with magical creatures. As Marjan learns more about her dad, his powers, and how he died, she begins to discover that she may have some of the same powers.... so, now what?

Bonus: Iranian American representation!

** four and a half stars

A wildly imaginative ride through the past, and the present, and the silken threads that weave both together, featuring faeries, griffons, unicorns, giants and other creatures as strange and as wonderful as human dreams, hopes and imaginings are able to construct.

Once there was a girl named Marjan Dastani, our fifteen year old first-person POV narrator, and a descendant of Persia. Marjan’s early childhood was a happy one - weaned on stories, myths and fables as ancient and intrinsically-held-close as her bloodline and her heritage anticipated.

“A place that was real and not real at the same time
A world that was bigger and older than the one I lived in.
It had more light and deeper shadows, and there was room for things to be strange and wonderful. Even when the stories ended, that world never quite went away. “

Marjan’s world implodes, when, wounded from the tragic early loss of her mother, teenage Marjan must also face the unexpected and violent death of her father, a veterinarian long-saddled with a struggling debt-ridden clinic. It is not long before she comes to suspect that there are elements of her fathers practice that may be strangely and mysteriously related to the very stories she was raised on.

A wild and wondrous journey follows, a fantastical world as engaging as it is terrifying - rife with fascinations, puzzles, horrors, dangers and spells - and a missing link, just out of reach for Marjan, that may explain a life held apart, long experienced as profoundly incomplete.

“If you give the darkness a face, then maybe you can speak to it. And if you can speak to it, then maybe you can control it. And after all, isn’t that why we invented monsters?”

I loved this deeply moving and engaging children’s book, sure to delight any-aged lovers of magic, myths and monsters. A twisty, intensely lyrical sort of tale, this book is all-but-guaranteed to inspire feelings “shimmered with gold; like breathing something priceless and rare and warm into our chests.”

A great big thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.


**This book will be published on Apr 4, 2023