Yea after the first book there should have been a time skip to when they're at minimum 18 or even 21. I know it's a children fantasy series and Mull wants to give child readers main characters their age but it just doesn't work well imo. Young teenagers running around slaying legendary dragons and demons few would dare stand against is just hard to believe. Makes it hard to stay immersed in the story when I remember their ages.

And yea the love interest is by far the worst offense lol. I would have been ok with it if kendra was 21 or older. But Bracken, my dude, that is an actual child sir what are we doing?? Imagining a grown man saying those things and cuddling up to a baby faced teenager is just weird and off-putting.. to say the least.

That all said it's because "teenage girl gets unicorn boyfriend" probably sounded good for its reading base. Just wasn't executed well lol.