Baba Yaga is quite a character. Maguire has given her dimensions I was unaware of and I'm glad he did. There's a lot of side stories going on, but I guess if the story is abut Baba Yaga that is to be expected. I was sad it ended so abruptly.

My thanks to NetGalley and Candlewick Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

This just didn't work for me. Maybe I'm too old for books that are geared towards middle readers, but the beginning was too stark and the coincidence of the two girls resembling each other so closely just didn't work for me. I also wasn't overly thrilled with the narrator and Baba Yaga using modern American terms in the middle of a magical, steam-powered Russia that still had tsars. I get that she is magical and isn't constrained by the normal laws of time and space, but it took me out of the world the author had attempted to create.

DNF at 43%. I really did try to push through, but I have other books that are waiting for me and I can't see trudging through this reluctantly when I could be flying through something that I am really enjoying. My time to read is at an all time low this year, so I have to be more picky in what I am reading.

Please note that the book wasn't bad, it was written quite well, but the characters, coincidences, the over-the-top horribleness in the peasant girl's life and the fourth-wall breaking by Baba Yaga added up to not working for me. I can see a middle reader really enjoying the fairy tale aspect of it, as well as the exotic time and place (if Russia is exotic for the reader.) 2, I was expecting more and maybe not the right time for this book for me, stars.