I think one of the problems in this book is that the author is throwing around a lot of tones and moods without smooth transitions between them. He opens the next chapter, and Paul is freaking out about how cool it is to be guided by a thousand squawking birds in the hot air balloomn, and on the next page BAM suddenly the birds are gone and it's ultra-quiet and it's just wierd. And that joyful bird moment came out of nowhere. And it's just not convincing. Paul's supposed to be trying to save his mortally endangered sister, not to mention the entirety of this rotten hole in this universe.
I think there's also some suffering here from Adventure Anxiety, where the author is scared that they're not making their story sound enough like an adventure, so they throw in moments where the characters are having an exccessively awesome time, particularly if it has to do with nature (cue birds). Also, Paul says something on 137 about how much he's learnt about birds in the last hour, and it's like, come on Nix, stop it--the fantasy realm as a place where the MC grows and learns a lot and has fun beign on an adventure? It's been done; it doesn't surprise us. You need to rely on execution for this one, becuase it's not an original device. My advice--get subtle. Fast.
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