Serafina and the Twisted Staff is a story about a young girl named Serafina that lives in an old fantasy world. Serafina is different than everyone else in an estate called Biltmore. She’s a catamount which means she’s half-human and half-lion. She’s so peculiar to everyone when it comes to looks and attitude that people can’t help but to stare at her. A suspicious man arrives at the estate, so Serafina and her friend Braeden decide to collaborate on investigating him. While investigating, they start to notice strange things going on at Biltmore like animals acting weird and aggressive. Serafina ventures out into the forest where she finds a lot of cages with miserable animals inside them. It looked like someone was capturing and trying to control the forest animals. After she puts some pieces of the puzzle together, she realizes that there is a big problem going on at Biltmore, and it's going to result in a big fight for the estate.

I liked the author’s writing style and how he describes setting and actions. It’s not too easy to the point that it’s stale and boring and it’s not too complex that you have a difficult time imaging it or paying attention. For example, there’s a fighting scene that’s the climax of the story, and I really liked how he described it so that it grabs your attention, “As she soared through the air, she pulled back her paw, then slammed it forward with a mighty strike into Uriah as he flew by” (Beatty 339).

The characterization of the protagonist is somewhat clique because of how Serafina is described, “No, she wasn’t a normal, everyday child. She wasn’t any day child. She was a creature of the night” (Beatty 7). I find this a very basic description because a lot of authors describe their protagonist as weird and unique, but there’s nothing too unique about their actual character.

I would recommend this book to pre-teens because of how easy it is to understand what the author is trying to say. It’s an interesting book, perfect for fantasy lovers, that has added a unique twist to the idea of half-human half-animal characters.