Ava Baldwin has always tried to keep her anger in check, just like her mom taught her. But when know-it-all classmate Owen King tries to speak over her yet again, Ava explodes . . . and Owen freezes, becoming totally unresponsive.

Although Owen recovers, Ava’s parents whisk her off to her mother’s alma mater, the Accademia del Forte, a mysterious international boarding school in Venice. There, Ava and her brother, Jax, discover that the Olympian gods founded the Accademia to teach the descendants of mythological monsters how to control their emotions and their powers and become functioning, well-adjusted members of society.

But not everything at the Accademia is as it seems. After her friend Fia is almost expelled for challenging a teacher, Ava realizes the school is hiding a dangerous secret. To uncover the truth, Ava and her new friends embark on an adventure that could change the way they view history, mythology—and themselves—forever…or end their lives.

I chose to read this book because I wanted a light, adventurous fantasy middle grade story. I thought it would be like a mix of Percy Jackson and Harry Potter. However, what I got was extremely unexpected and disappointing.

I’ll start with what I did like about the book: I enjoyed all of the Greek mythology in this story. There is quite a bit, and I enjoyed reading (and learning) more about them. I learned about the Greek gods and monsters in high school and also took a class in college, but I have forgotten a lot over the years. So this was a nice refresher, and I learned more about other Greek characters and stories that I hadn’t heard before. I also liked the twist where the children were descendants of Greek monsters instead of Greek gods, like in Percy Jackson.

The adventure the children go on is fun and creative. It felt a little rushed, and I would’ve liked it to be a little longer with more buildup, but overall, it never got boring, and there was a lot of action. It was a very quick and easy read. I read it in two days. There were quite a few twists and turns, and the whole story felt like a puzzle that we were putting together, which was also fun and entertaining.

The main protagonist, Ava, is an admirably brave, strong-willed, clever, and intelligent girl. A few of Ava’s other friends were okay, but didn’t stand out too much for me. However, I did not like her best friend, Fia, at all. I felt like she was disrespectful, snarky, and rude. Her rebellious, reckless reactions caused her own problems, and things could’ve been handled differently. We also didn’t get a lot of backstory on the characters, so I didn’t really get to know them that well and just didn’t care as much. I felt like we needed more time with them and more character development. The ending was also abrupt and didn’t feel fully fleshed out. Again, it felt too rushed and short.

However, this book was obviously written by a feminist who had something to say! If I had known ahead of time the feminist turn it would take, I never would’ve read this novel.

This was one of the preachiest books I’ve ever read in my entire life. I don’t want any movement or group pushing their agenda on me, especially in my entertainment when I just want to escape into a fun, creative story. We get enough soapbox speeches about our culture in many other ways. I don’t need (or want) it in my books. Plus, putting these messages in children’s books is appalling to me because not everyone agrees or wants these messages forced onto their children.

This didn’t feel like female empowerment. It felt like progressive, feminist propaganda disguised as a middle grade fantasy. The overtly feminist tone and angle of the story were nauseating, tiresome, and annoying. I tried to keep an open mind as I read it, but I found myself rolling my eyes way too many times. I was incredibly disappointed at the turn it took when it had such potential to be a fun, lighthearted read with some good universal messages without being preachy. But unfortunately, that is not what we got with this one, which is a shame. The concept was imaginative, but the execution was poor.