There's a few standard characters rolled in (pushy, loving aunt, a thief) as well as some intriguing ones (the uncle, the horse witch). Now imagine if it could ooze around on its own, and eat other things the way it eats flour and water, like your enemy’s face, for example. What she is not used to is finding a body on the floor (especially not the body of a girl around her own age). if things go wrong in a siege you’ll all die horribly, and in formal weddings the stakes are much higher. It’s a pretty young story, with some inconsistencies and contradictions that can annoy an adult reader, but I’m pretty sure would not bother a child in the slightest.

Not the fact that they exist, but the fact that two children have to step in and save the day because there were things that someone in charge should have been doing to keep everyone safe. It certainly doesn't hurt anyone to be told fictionally that evil should not ultimately succeed, that they can't leave it for others to fight, good people do die, and that, by inference, the hero, as well as the reader will have to work hard to defeat their own particular evil/s.I love that we grapple with the injustice of powerless groups having to be the ones who have to fix the mistakes of the empowered. Mona’s wry and often disgusted commentary on what’s happening around her and just how far the situation has been left to go awry reads like both Sixteen Ways and the Discworld. It’s a humble but comfortable existence working at her Aunt Tabitha’s bakery, and Mona is happy enough just to be able to help out. But it never sugarcoats the fact that the situation is beyond dire – and that war is very definitely hell.

Bob is a scene stealer, which is something I never would have guessed I would say about a gloppy bucket of yeast and dough that extends tentacles. But another trend that has happened is that YA has progressively gotten darker and gotten closer and closer to adult, leaving a gap between the light middle grade and the pretty damn dark YA. After even more time thinking about it, I still LOVE this book, but I'm not sure if it'll be as rereadable as the other books on the 7 stars list. It felt like Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City because to a certain extent Mona and Orhan are in the same position.Since this is a world where magic is common, her talent is seen as minor, but she doesn’t mind, since all she wants is to bake well.