lilith89ibz 's review for:

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

3.0

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This book was, together with [b:Beneath the Sugar Sky|27366528|Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children, #3)|Seanan McGuire|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1494436031l/27366528._SY75_.jpg|47413798], one of my least favourites in the series. It reads very young for YA and entirely too old for middle-grade, and it inhabits a no man's land of just-barely-teenager problems that I always find very boring to read about. Is "fitting into gender boxes" something children are even doing anymore?? While I appreciate the angle of seeing this through an intersex protagonist, taking Regan out of the real world and shoving her into a fantasy place effectively erased her struggles with being intersex, since nobody there knows or cares about human gender or sexuality.

And if this had been a fun adventure with an intersex protagonist meant to serve as escapism for intersex teenagers I'd have enjoyed it. But this was nowhere near as interesting and dark as some of the other books in the series and it felt very lackluster in comparison. This pretty much ends up in the same place as Connolly's [b:The Book of Lost Things|69136|The Book of Lost Things|John Connolly|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388253367l/69136._SY75_.jpg|1164024], but without any of the danger, since the plot armour around Regan is made clear from the very first time her safety is threatened (

Spoiler

nobody will harm her since she's supposed to save the place

). So we're left with a very bland "monsters are actually people if you bother to listen to them" message and not much else.

Spoiler

AND she breaks her promise to her best friend by leaving without even saying goodbye? Like, fine, let them figure out their own political system, but you could have given them a heads up.