I’m not one to read fantasy books. Honestly, the last fantasy book I put my hands on was more than likely Harry Potter. However, drawn in by the cover art and the promise of a romantic, pull-on-your-heartstrings story, I picked up The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles.

Half of me is so thankful I did, and the other half entirely regrets this decision, and I can’t think of a better way to describe my feelings about this book.

If I don’t go too far into the logistics of the storyline, it’s actually pretty decent. The main storyline entails a girl named Zoe and her battle between her mysterious love from another world and how important her family is to her, but then again, even typing that makes me cringe. However, for some reason, I didn’t hate it. Something about the way Zoe and her family simply accepted the fact that Zoe’s new love (named X) was from an entirely different world made me accept it too, at least while I was reading it.

The character development done by Giles was excellent and a major selling point of the novel. Zoe’s little brother, Jonah, was my personal favorite character, given the fact that I fell in love with his spunky, hyper personality and each quirk within it. Each person in the novel, even those of which only appear on a page or two, have so much depth to them that I couldn’t help but feel attached to them.

A major downside of the novel was Giles failed attempt at “relating to the common teen.” Being that common teen, I was laughing as I read about social media in the book. At one point, I even exclaimed, “No one would ever do that in real life!” (in a crowded room– I received quite a few weird looks). It made everything feel almost forced, as if Giles was attempting to write books to sell rather than writing to create a good storyline.

The main reason I would recommend The Edge of Everything is that I was never bored. No matter where I was in the story, something was happening to someone in an entirely perfect way. Something that I feel is very difficult to do without making it seem as if everything is just overdramatic.

Really, this book is a hit or miss depending on the person. It almost entirely depends on the style of book a person likes– more so than any other book I have read. That being said, if fantasy style literature is your forte, I would definitely recommend it.