Rashika, The Book Owl

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

This book can be easily surmised as fun. Admittedly though, I am a tad disappointed after having my mind blown byThe Lost earlier this year. This book doesn’t even begin to compare on the level The Lost sets but considering the two books actually aren’t that similar, I don’t think it would be fair to compare them.

The major selling point of this book is adventure, it’s why it’s so fun. I mean these kids are trying to find magical stones that will grant the person who has them invincibility. Who doesn’t want to be invincible (certainly not me)? There is also a bit of myth/ancient history involved which makes it all the more exciting, for me at least.

Kayla is a great main character. I love that she is willing to go so far to take care of her family but at the same time, what kept on bothering me was that she was just a teenager. She had powers yes, but she was inexperienced in using them and she really should have confided at least a little bit in her mother. No matter how good the intentions, it’s never good to keep a secret of that magnitude.  That said, her loyalty wasn’t a bad quality, I loved that in spite of everything, she recognized that her mother was not the bad guy here. That her mother always wanted what was best for her even if what she thought was best did not line up with Kayla’s ideas about what was best for herself.

In fact, I loved that there were actually good flawed parental figures in this book. There were bad ones, but they were counteracted by the good ones; the parents who in spite of their not so good actions, were never portrayed as evil or even as plain old bad since their children realized that they were not in fact the enemy.

I also loved Selena. I loved how she was not the perfect best friend and actually had issues of her own. She may have been confident but she was also insecure about certain things and did actually need to stand up for herself.

Daniel was also just as fun to read about. I loved that the fact that he was hot wasn’t particularly emphasized. It was in the beginning but as Kayla got to know him better, the emphasis was less on his beauty and more on the fact that he was actually a great guy. What I liked most about him though was his determination to get his mother back; at the same time though it was one of his worst characteristics considering it led him to lying and what have you.

The romance is one of the things that did not work for me though. I expected more considering that the two actually complemented one another but before the relationship had even had any real time to progress, they had already fallen in love and I just ended up being disappointed.

The plot also ended up falling apart when things became rushed towards the end and everything ended up being wrapped up neatly in a bow. It’s one of the reasons why I was so disappointed in this book. It started off beautifully and I was so excited to see where it would all go and how things would turn out but it just didn’t go as well as I had hoped. There wasn’t enough focus on the ancient history/myth for my taste and I wish we actually found out more about the past then just the brief mentions we got. All of this could have linked to something so full of awesomeness yet that wasn’t the case and that made me sad.

I felt like there was a lot of potential in the world building itself too but the fact that it wasn’t explored as much as possible didn’t bother me as much as the fact that the plot ended up not being as awesome as it could have been.

On top of that, I hated how some things wrapped up. As I mentioned before, I felt like the ending was too neat and that there were just some knots that could have been tied a whole lot better than they were.

With all my disappointment expressed, I have to say, this is definitely a book I’d recommend to anyone who just needs something to read. It’s fun and adventurous and while it’s far from perfect, you’ll still have a good time. I know I did.