Book Review: Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters (Momotaro #1)

Release Date: April 5, 2016
Author: Margaret Dilloway
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Length: 320 pages
Source: Library Audiobook

Xander Miyamoto would rather do almost anything than listen to his sixth grade teacher, Mr. Stedman, drone on about weather disasters happening around the globe. If Xander could do stuff he's good at instead, like draw comics and create computer programs, and if Lovey would stop harassing him for being half Asian, he might not be counting the minutes until the dismissal bell.

When spring break begins, at last, Xander plans to spend it playing computer games with his best friend, Peyton. Xander's father briefly distracts him with a comic book about some samurai warrior that pops out of a peach pit. Xander tosses it aside, but Peyton finds it more interesting.

Little does either boy know that the comic is a warning. They are about to be thrust into the biggest adventure of their lives-a journey wilder than any Xander has ever imagined, full of weird monsters even worse than Lovey. To win at this deadly serious game they will have to rely on their wits, courage, faith, and especially, each other. Maybe Xander should have listened to Mr. Stedman about the weather after all....

    

Review:

Protagonist: Xander Miyamoto would rather play video games with his best friend Peyton than pay attention when his teacher is droning on and on about global warming and the natural disasters happening around the world. However, after his father is taken away by a giant tidal wave, he discovers a startling family secret and goes on a journey to save his father, and possibly the world. Xander is a pretty standard MG protagonist. He's not too into school, he has a wild and vivid imagination, and what sets him apart makes him special. I honestly wish I could have connected better with Xander, I think MG aged readers would connect better with him, but as an adult I honestly found him to be a bit too whiny and self-deprecating.

World Building: So, while this is an MG book that deals with foreign folklore, I wasn't expecting it to be like a Rick Riordan book, though with it being from the same publisher maybe I had a bit of hope. It's definitely not as gripping as a Riordan novel, though maybe I wasn't in the right headspace when I read it or maybe I didn't have enough knowledge of Japanese folklore for it to really pop out and grip me. The Japanese folklore elements, especially the story of Momotaro, were interesting to encounter in the story. Whenever I did know what something was or recognize a Japanese word I did perk up a bit, but honestly, the pacing and storytelling was a bit more juvenile than I would have liked. Again, I think it'd be great for someone who is MG aged but wasn't as gripping for me as an adult.

Predictability: Something I noticed pretty early in this story is that the author is pretty heavy-handed with the foreshadowing. I understand that covers are chosen after a book is, at the very least, mostly completed, but after acknowledging something on the cover, I almost felt constantly beaten over the head with foreshadowing that hints at that reveal, and honestly I think it would have felt that way even if I had never seen the cover. There are a few other twists where the foreshadowing was heavy-handed, I think there was only one large twist that wasn't completely obvious way before its reveal and I was still able to figure it out long before the secret came out.

Ending: The ending of this story really isn't that bad. In fact, I can appreciate how everything came together in the end and I really did enjoy the final climax of the story. It had a great bit of action and tension, and even after what happens with the main threat there's still a great bit of gripping tension before the final cooldown period begins. I think if the book had gripped me more during the bulk of the story I would have been more invested in the ending, but objectively it is quite an exciting ending. The story does end with a rather predictable twist at the end, but it's a twist that I'll admit I'm a bit curious to discover more about.

Rating:

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy this book quite a bit, but it just wasn't as gripping as I would have liked and the protagonist did rub me the wrong way from time to time. That being said the second book does sound pretty compelling and while I don't think I'll get to it right away as I had planned, I will try to get to it sometime next month.

Book Review: Camelot Burning (Metal and Lace #1)

Release Date: May 8, 2014
Author: Kathryn Rose
Publisher: Flux
Length: 408 pages
Source: eGalley from NetGalley

By day, Vivienne is Guinevere's lady-in-waiting. By night, she's Merlin's secret apprentice, indulging in the new mechanical arts and science of alchemy. It's a preferred distraction from Camelot’s gossipy nobility, roguish knights, and Lancelot’s athletic new squire, Marcus, who will follow in all knights’ footsteps by taking a rather inconvenient vow of chastity.

More than anything, Vivienne longs to escape Camelot for a future that wouldn't include needlework or marriage to a boorish lord or dandy. But when King Arthur's sorceress sister, Morgan le Fay, threatens Camelot, Vivienne must stay to help Merlin build a steam-powered weapon to defeat the dark magic machine Morgan will set upon the castle. Because if Camelot falls, Morgan would be that much closer to finding the elusive Holy Grail. Time is running out and Morgan draws near, and if Vivienne doesn't have Merlin's weapon ready soon, lives would pay the price, including that of Marcus, the only one fast enough to activate it on the battlefield.

    

Review:

Protagonist: Vivienne is the queen's lady-in-waiting by day, but by night she secretly studies the mechanical arts and alchemy from Merlin himself. As a woman in Camelot, it's not appropriate for a woman to be learning anything other than maintaining a household and how to catch the attention of a suitable husband, but Vivienne dreams of more than a life at court and a loveless marriage to some noble or dandy. She wants to learn new things and build mechanical feats of brilliance. While I did enjoy the character of Vivienne, I also found her to be a bit too much of a cookie cutter "strong and inquisitive heroine." most of the time she has a fairly logical mindset, but when her emotions come into play she can be impulsive and charge headfirst into danger. She is a great character, but I feel she lacks something to set her apart from the archetype she embodies.

Romance: This book did get off to a great start in terms of the romance. Vivienne is intrigued by Marcus, Lancelot's new squire, and that curiosity eventually blooms into attraction, though she knows nothing could come of that attraction since knights are required to be celibate, a requirement that it seems everyone knows isn't actually kept, but any sort of marriage with Marcus is still off the table. However, while this romance starts off at a slower, but very enjoyable pace, at a certain moment I feel as though there's a skip in the romantic development, and before I could fully get on board with these two characters' romance they suddenly were sharing their intensely strong feelings toward one another. Now, I'm not opposed to these characters being together, in fact, I think they work really well together, but the abrupt jump in their devotion to one another is extremely jarring. My hope is that in the next installment we'll see more chemistry between these two characters so that I don't feel as though I missed a bunch of romantic development between these two characters.

World Building: A Steampunk Camelot? Sign me up! I was really excited to read this book on the Arthurian Legend aspect alone, but a steampunk element really amped up my excitement to read this story. (Although it did take me nearly three years to get around to, please don't judge me!) One of the elements to this story I found the most compelling was that the author didn' romanticize the famous characters from Arthurian legend. They all have flaws, some more than others, and it helped to bring a nice element of realism to this magical and mechanical world. Now as for the settings that we get to see, I was a bit bummed that Camelot felt sort of generic, much like our heroine, in that while we hear about Camelot as this wonderful utopia-esque place, there's nothing that really separates it from other kingdoms and since we don't get to see much of the world outside of Camelot, there wasn't all that much to this world, at least from a setting standpoint that stood out to me. As for the steampunk and alchemical elements to this story, I sort of felt underwhelmed by them, I mean there were definitely a few really cool steampunk scenes, but I felt as though the alchemy wasn't explained the best it could be and while I'm sure we'll get a greater understanding of it in later installments, I wish it was explained better in this book.

Predictability: As far as predictability goes, I was also similarly underwhelmed. I mean, there were quite a few surprising twists in this book. There were things I had no way I could see coming just pop right up, but in most of these cases, I never got the shock factor that I usually get when a surprising twist is revealed. One of the twists, I'm not going to go into specifics because I don't want to spoil anything, but one of the twists was actually a trope I've seen a lot of times before, but since there was no real foreshadowing for it, there was no way I could have seen it coming, and yet when it happened I sort of just brushed it off. Now, that's not to say that I was never shocked, nor was there never a time that I was able to predict something and get super excited that I got it right, but they were very few and far between.

Ending: Honestly, as this story started to wrap up I had a lot of theories about what was going to happen next, but I was surprised and even shocked, to learn where all of the characters end up by the time this story is over. The ending of this book actually had the majority of shocking moments for me in this book, and most of them happened during an epic final climax. There's a lot of tension as this book ramps up toward the ending and there are a few "blink and you'll miss it" moments. As the story winds down we get to see where the story will be going and how Vivienne and those she cares about factor into it.

Rating:

I do sort of feel like I've trashed this book more than I meant to because it is a really enjoyable book, but there were a lot of things that just felt underwhelming or didn't pop in the way I wanted them to. I will be continuing this series, but probably not for a little while.