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German and english review

First things first: I received this book through NetGalley

actual rating: 3.5

Inhalt: Packender Abenteuerroman für Kinder ab 10 Jahren. Für alle Fans von Jumanji.

Geheimnisvoll sieht das Spiel aus. Als Farah es aufbaut, beginnt es zu vibrieren. Da tritt Farahs kleiner Bruder aufs Spielbrett und verschwindet im Spiel. Farah springt ihm hinterher und landet in einer orientalischen Stadt voller Sanddünen, Türme und Paläste. Hier erwarten Farah nicht nur bengalische Köstlichkeiten und Mondlicht, das man aus Flaschen trinken kann. Sie muss auch drei Aufgaben bestehen. Denn nur wer diese Aufgaben besteht, darf die Welt des Spiels verlassen. Wer jedoch verliert, ist für immer darin gefangen ...

Das Buch war wirklich ein wunderschönes Abendteuer. Ich bin total von dem Schreibstil der Autorin begeistert und kann es wirklich kaum abwarten mehr von ihr zu lesen. Sie hat mit Paheli eine wunderschöne Welt erschaffen und sie uns mit ihren Worten näher gebracht und ein wunderschönes Bild von der Stadt gemalt. Ich mochte auch wie uns die Kultur ein bisschen näher gebracht wurde, deswegen mochte ich auch das nahöstliche Element in dem Buch. Das hat die Geschichte für mich zu etwas ganz besonderem gemacht.

Bei mir sind aber leider bei den Charakteren ein paar Punkte verloren gegangen. Ich mochte Farah als Hauptcharakter so unheimlich gerne. Mit ihren 12 Jahren, war sie wirklich ein unheimlich starker Charakter, die wirklich alles für ihren Bruder getan hat um ihn wieder zurück nach Hause und in Sicherheit zu holen. Aber auch wenn die Liebe zwischen Farah und ihrem Bruder und die Freundschaft zwischen Farah, Essie und Alex im Mittelpunkt der Geschichte gestanden hat, sind die Charakte für mich total flach gefallen. Während Farah mir gleich ans Herz gewachsen ist, konnten mir die anderen Charaktere einfach nicht nah gebracht werden. Sie waren da und ich wollte auch, dass sie alle heil nach Hause kommen, aber das war es auch schon.

Wenn man aber allerdings einfach nur eine kleine Abenteuergeschichte sucht, durch die man doch recht schnell gelesen hat, dann kann ich das Buch wirklich empfehlen. Das Ende ist abgeschlossen, allerdings wird es ein zweites Buch geben.

***

Summary: A trio of friends from New York City find themselves trapped inside a mechanical board game that they must dismantle in order to save themselves and generations of other children in this action-packed debut that’s a steampunk Jumanji with a Middle Eastern flair.

When twelve-year-old Farah and her two best friends get sucked into a mechanical board game called The Gauntlet of Blood and Sand—a puzzle game akin to a large Rubik’s cube—they know it’s up to them to defeat the game’s diabolical architect in order to save themselves and those who are trapped inside, including her baby brother Ahmed. But first they have to figure out how.

Under the tutelage of a lizard guide named Henrietta Peel and an aeronaut Vijay, the Farah and her friends battle camel spiders, red scorpions, grease monkeys, and sand cats as they prepare to face off with the maniacal Lord Amari, the man behind the machine. Can they defeat Amari at his own game…or will they, like the children who came before them, become cogs in the machine?

This book was truly a beautiful adventure. I'm so very impressed with the authors writing and I seriously can't wait to read more by her. She build such a beautiful place with Paheli, and managed to really bring this world closer to us with her words and painted such a stunning picture of the city. I also loved how the culture was brought closer to us, the whole middle eastern element of the book was just amazing, and also the thing that made the story so very special to me.

But with the characters the book lost a few points for me, sadly. I loved Farah as a main character a lot. She's 12 xears old and still, she was such an amazing and strong character, who did pretty much everything in her power to bring her brother back home and to safety. But even though the love between Farah and her brother, and the friendship between Farah, Essie and Alex were the main focus of the book, the characters fell super flat for me. While I loved Farah right away, I couldn't feel much for the other characters. They were there and I wanted them to get safely back home but that's pretty much it.

BUT, if you are just interested in a nice, little adventure story, that is very easy and fast to read, I highly recommend this book. The end of the story is nicely wrapped up, but there will be a second book.

So, apart from the fact that I'm convinced that the only reason that the kids at these schools are literate is their education before they go to the fancy schmancy magic schools.  It's more College type teaching than ensuring that they have any education and most of it seems to consist of the students being left to their own devices to sink or swim, my father would be appalled.

My father was a building construction and carpentry teacher (I believe they call them Material Technology teachers now but he's retired...) and to me magic should be like this.  Magic isn't safe, like using chisels, it needs supervision, because even if you do supervise carefully some idiot will try to cut a finger off (like someone did in my brother's class) and now I'm starting to plot how a magic school would operate, in reality.

So Call discovers that his father has plans, that involve Havoc, his well demon dog, and they're not good, so he runs away from home to one of his friends houses and then to school where the year starts okay but things go downhill rapidly and he runs away from school too.

I'm getting too old for these books.  I'm seeing more plot hole than plot and weak worldbuilding rather than being drawn in but I'm not really  the market for this so I can't really tell if it would work for the market.

The moment is finally there. The fight that will prove whether all that Kris did was in vain or not. Although I never really doubted the outcome of the challenge, I found it an interesting and thrilling episode nonetheless. So far, I really like the intricate world that is being created. I hope we will be getting a bit more of the council soon.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Born to the Blade Season 1 Episode 4.

Since Episode One, we've been waiting for this: Kris Denn of Rumika facing the gauntlet. A series of 6 duels against the members of the Warders Circle of Twaa-Fei to gain a seat at the table for Rumika. Failure here means a decade (or so) before the next potential warder from Rumika has an opportunity. That's pretty much the whole episode in a nutshell -- can Kris make it?

Ultimately, I don't think anyone will be shocked at the outcome -- it's about the journey, how the outcome is reached. Underwood nails it. A couple of weeks ago, I linked to a piece he wrote about how fight scenes can reveal character (he also tweeted about it this week), and this episode is him displaying that theory in practice. It really works -- not only do we get a better idea about who Kris is, but we get a better understanding of the other Warders. Sure, we may not actually learn anything about Lavinia and Ojo -- we just get more evidence of what we already know -- but there are other duels.

This is longer than the previous two episodes -- and it helped. The extra length gave things a chance to happen. I assume that's not something we'll see next week, but I can hope, right?

I've liked the previous episodes enough to justify the purchase of the season and to keep going, but I just flat-out liked this one. Good fight scenes, good character moments and the plot moves ahead. Where this goes next, I'm not sure, but having concluded this initial arc, I'm ready to see it. These authors took their time establishing this world, and carefully built up to this point and what lies beyond. I'm looking forward to see what else comes on this foundation.