whimsical and dragons!? Yes please.

The writing is very detailed with endearing characters. Jinny is on a journey to search for the missing half of her amulet. Fans of magical adventures, fantastical creatures, and sweet characters would love this.

In A Gift Of Leaf we follow Jinny Morai, a foundling slave pestered by a nightly vision, on her path to Magehood.

My overall impression is 'meh'. It's not a bad book, the story has a lot of promise, but it's not well executed. Two things on the top of my head that bothered me is that the world-building is lacking for most of the book, and that there seemed to be no consistency with how the characters spoke - they'd sometimes use in-book swearwords and at other times use real-life ones in a way that doesn't have an in-book explanation.

I really wanted to enjoy this book since it seems to contain everything I enjoy in a good fantasy.

It is a whimsical and detailed fantasy novel with a captivating world and endearing characters. Jinny is a foundling, wrenched from her foster parents as a young child to slave in the darkness of the library caves and every night she has a strange mental visitor who begs incessantly. One day she discovers two stones that change her life forever.

How to train your dragon meets The fellowship of the Ring, which is conformed by the female version of Harry Potter, the male version of Hermione (although he is much more secretive) and many others. They have to find a magic object that will give them a chance to fight against someone worst than Voldemort and Grindewald together.
The world building and the magic system is easy to understand and it's explained through the book not only in a couple of chapters. You learn all this things at the same time Jinny does. Imagine poor Jinny's face when at her iniciation as a Mage, an spirit appears and gives her a prophecy only she can fulfill. It's amazing! I can't wait to read book 2!

A Gift of Leaf by Helen A May is a whimsical and enchanting fantasy tale that follows the journey of Jinny Morai, a foundling who is forced to work as a slave in the Library caves of the Holtanbore. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she discovers two stones, a broken amulet hidden in a nest of leaves and a mysterious mailed egg. From this egg hatches a baby dragon named Sprout, and Jinny's world is forever changed.

The book explores Jinny's growth and transformation as she ventures out of the darkness of the caves and into the light. Accompanied by Quaryk, a young Mage, she discovers a new world and learns about her own magical abilities. The relationship between Jinny and Sprout is heartwarming, adding a touch of charm to the story.

May's world-building is rich and detailed, immersing readers in the magical realm of Leaf. The creatures and settings are vividly described, transporting readers to a fantastical world that sparks the imagination.

However, the narrative occasionally relies on telling rather than showing, which can lessen the impact of certain events. It would have been even more captivating to experience these events firsthand and witness the characters' growth through their actions.

The book ends on a hopeful note, leaving readers eager for more. Jinny's quest to find the missing half of the amulet and confront the looming threats of the Necromancer and Dark Mage creates a sense of anticipation and sets the stage for further adventures.

One aspect that could be further explored is Jinny's identity. As a foundling and ex-slave, she grapples with questions of self-discovery and her place in the world. It would be interesting to delve deeper into her character development and unravel the mysteries surrounding her origins.

Overall, A Gift of Leaf is a whimsical and detailed fantasy novel with a captivating world and endearing characters. While it leaves the reader wanting more, it promises an exciting continuation of Jinny's journey and the search for the missing half of the amulet. Fans of magical adventures and fantastical creatures will find this book an enjoyable read.

4.5 rounded up to 5/5

In theory, this book should have been a perfect fit for me. I love inventive worldbuilding, settings where nature is viewed as sacred, and stories about abused characters overcoming adversity. I adore a good story about someone rising up from nothing to realize they're special in ways they'd have never imagined. Found family is a favourite trope of mine, animal companions make me happy, and I love seeing the concept of telepathic communication get explored in ways which show both the positive and negative aspects. Take all those things, toss in a dragon, dash some diversity on top, and you've got the premise of this book. So, really, I'm just as stunned as anyone else might be that I didn't love it.

But I didn't. And no matter how much I wish I could say otherwise, A Gift of Leaf is very much not a good match for me.

I found myself feeling frequently confused by the sparse worldbuilding, which remained that way until just beyond the half-way mark when a character's monologue is used to infodump some exposition. I don't particularly find long-winded fictional history lessons entertaining, and would have preferred to either be left blind to the nuances of the world or learn in digestible chunks from various interactions spaced throughout the book from the beginning. And even with the presence of infodumping, it comes so late in the book that I spent a large chunk of the experience - at least the first quarter - unable to determine if the characters were miniature beings (think: Thumbelina, Tinkerbell) or the size of real life humans and living amongst impossibly-large, magic trees. I'm still not completely certain I figured it out, either; with the minimal amount of description and the exposition focusing primarily on the world's history, it's very difficult to get a solid mental image for the scale of things.

There were also a few inconsistencies which hindered my enjoyment. For instance, I found it quite jarring that characters used silly fantasy euphemisms like "Great Tree!" or "Root and twig!" most of the time, yet at other times used actual swears ranging from the mild end like "crap" or "damn" to the stronger end like "bitch" or "slut." There's a tonal dissonance in that choice which drew me out of the story. It felt so off, like swapping the channel from a PG-13 movie to an R-rated one and back again a few times. The fact sometimes coarse language was euphemized with things like 'and then I swore at him' (not a direct quote, but the gist of the sentiment), made me feel all the more confused about the intended tone and age rating.

Beyond that, I struggled to get into the story initially, as the first chapter contains roughly five scenes of on-page abuse of a young person - two of which involve flashbacks to when the main character is a small child. The brutality and overwhelming amount of it heaped into the beginning before I could even get my bearings left me more emotionally exhausted and frustrated than empathetic. There's 'a tough life' and then there's wondering how a character is even still alive with the amount of starvation, unhygienic conditions, and abuse heaped onto her in addition to physical labor. The detached way the events were described made the discomfort of enduring such scenes all the worse. For me personally, the writing style doesn't sell the emotional impact, thus making it feel like something I endured reading for no purpose.

Finally, I couldn't stand how immaturely the main characters behaved at times. There weren't just miscommunications; there were blind rages caused by wild assumptions which led to mistreating one another for no valid reason. Sure, I suppose this concept fits in YA, but I'm sick of the trope and I'm quite exhausted of characters who act like jerks based on failures to communicate like actual people. It may bring drama to a story, but not all drama is good - and this particular brand definitely doesn't strike me as enjoyable to read.

These incompatibilities with my personal preferences left me disappointed because, in all honesty, I wanted to love this book. It has a full cornucopia of things I enjoy in it: a character who can communicate with animals, a dragon, a mystical world full of magic, a main character who overcomes adversity, and a decent chunk of diversity. In fact, the two most prominent characters are dark-skinned (as are many others) and the main character has a permanently injured leg which causes mobility problems. There are so many reasons to adore this, and I feel let down that it didn't live up to my hopes and expectations of those themes.

The overall story is nothing new, but the interesting concepts introduced in the worldbuilding could have made it stand out as unique and inventive. Unfortunately, for me, the pacing and writing issues - especially the choice to use 'single quotes' for dialogue - just take away from what could have been a very good and immersive story. The bond between Jin (the main character) and Sprout (her dragon) is fun, entertaining, and beautiful. Sprout himself is a joy of a character who has a heart of gold but can't quite contain his draconic urges. And Jin's journey, struggling against a powerful force of evil, is the kind of story I'd expect and want from a young adult fantasy. There's potential to be found, here, and I think that with a lot more polishing it could become something amazing.

But as it stands, I'm underwhelmed and did not enjoy A Gift of Leaf. There were pieces I liked enough to convince me to finish it, but also pieces I disliked so much it made me take frequent breaks when I could've finished this book much quicker otherwise. By the end, I was just ready for it to be over, and I can't rate a book that made me feel that way above two stars.

I wish I'd liked this, but it definitely wasn't for me.

Thank you Helen A. May, Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for this free ARC in exchange for a review.

I really enjoyed this whimsical first book in a series. The relationship between Jinny and Sprout is really cute, and I'm curious to see what happens next in this adventure story.

The only thing I would have changed would be to have more showing instead of telling, but that wasn't annoying enough to lose a star.

Even if I don't get in on the ARC of book 2, I'm reading it.

A wonderfully fantasy story with very detailed world building with very cool creatures! I would definitely recommend reading if you want to disappear in to a whole new exciting world!

A beautiful fantasy story but a wonderfully detailed world and exciting creatures. Thank you netgalley for allowing me to have an arc copy of this book