Is anyone ever truly normal?
So, What The Heck Is This Book About?
Zed and Tuesday Furst live a fairly normal life. Until some men with shape shifting weapons show up at their door the day their parents leave on a "business trip". Even more bizarre, their family dog has started bursting into flames and they find themselves transported to Falinnheim, a strange land filled with odd creatures and a tyrannical government.
There, people insist that their father is a fugitive and in turn attempt to capture them to lure him out of hiding. With nothing but their bizarre family dog to protect them, the kids will have to escape some angry soldiers, and solve nursery rhyme puzzles if they ever want to get home again.
This Was Awesome!
I loved the writing style of this book. It had a fairytale feel to it and made even seemingly uninteresting things fascinating to read. Let's just say that as someone who is not a fan of big paragraphs more than once I was happy to read the longer paragraphs in this book because of how fun the style was.
I also thoroughly enjoyed Tuesday. Her frequent outbursts and odd antics provided a perfect balance to the more cautious Zed while adding a bunch of lighthearted moments to an already funny story. Plus, I'm a huge fan of books which focus more on sibling dynamics, something which this novel nailed.
Lastly, this book had some very fun and creative elements to it from the nursery rhyme themed puzzles to a bandit resistance and shape-shifting weapons. These elements all added some extra weirdness to the book, which made it a great read.
And This Kinda Sucked
Honestly, I didn't really have any problems when reading this book. It was fun read with quirky characters and an interesting magical world that I'd be happy to return to in a sequel.
The only reason for not giving this great novel a perfect rating was simply because it didn't wow me. Yes, I enjoyed the characters and story but I didn't finish the book thinking that this story will stay with me for years to come in the way that something like The Lightning Thief has.
That being said, a lot of that boils to preferences (so I'm sure someone will feel different than me) and I'm sure that the author's storytelling will only improve with time.
The Conclusion Is...
All in all, I liked this book a lot and I recommend it to anyone looking for a fun escape into a fantastical world filled with quirky characters and one magical dog.
Rating: 8/10
Goodreads Rating: 4/5
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