Title: The Amaranth Enchantment

Author: Julie Berry

Publisher: Bloomsbury 2009

Genre: YA Fantasy

Pages: 308

Rating: 5 / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Support Your Local Library; YA; April Read-a-Thon

I really enjoyed this book.  It had dashes of fantasy, dashes of romance, dashes of a coming-of-age story, dashes of action.  I sped through the book loving most pages.  It really reminded me of Howl's Moving Castle... maybe that's why I loved it so much.  There was lots of parallels from the lost little girl to the witch.  Although in this case the witch was a good witch.  The only part that I just couldn't beleive was the ending.  The crazy twist wasn't so crazy.  In fact, it was downright deus ex machina.  And if we remember my previous Top 10 Tuesday: Bookish Pet Peeves, I hate stories that end with a deus ex machina effect. Annoying!  I would have prefered a much more belieavable conclusion to the story line.