Review: It was so so fantasy
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 25, 2013
This is a children's or young teen novel that I picked up on a free day. It's not exactly bad but there is a lot of room for improvement.The good things for this novel include creativity, strong vision, and a good mix of adventure.The bad was too much exposition, weird plot devices, and too many point of view shifts.On the surface this seems like a novelization of a made for tv action aventure movie. It has the same rough edges and stiff exposition of a movie novel. However rough though the movie keeps its attention to its audience.Even with this being a children's book the plot had some sizable holes I felt were maybe too open. ***SPOILER STARTS*** For instance why does the Thief need a certain boy? Why doesn't he just grab the kid when he walks in the meusem the first time? How did no one else smell rotting mummy birds? ***SPOILERS END***The magic is explained well and the world fills full of rich description. You really start to feel like you are in London.What this book really needs is a good strong editing team to dissect this piece, cut out the fluff, and put it back together. Expand on things that we need (like replacing exposition with actual conversations) and cutting out what isn't necessary (sooooo much exposition and internal dialogue).So this isn't a bad book but it isn't a great one either. I would say it is a safe read for young children but probably not great for anyone over 14.For a full review, see my work on the examiner.com [...]