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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Revelation!, November 28, 2009
I had previously started to read Shadowmancer by G.P. Taylor but hadn't gotten in too far before I set it aside so I wasn't expecting much out of his new series. The quote on the back cover of the book calling G.P. Taylor, "The new C.S. Lewis" didn't help either. Yet, sometimes out of nowhere there comes a revelation. When I opened The Secret of Indigo Moon, book two in The Dopple Ganger Chronicles I had one of those moments.
The story is standard fare for youth fiction. A young man and his twin friends live at a school for abandoned children and stumble upon a theft and decide to investigate. Enter their enemy from the first book, along with a soft-hearted henchman, and a cast of interesting if unoriginal characters and you have the ingredients for a story that any middle schooler would enjoy. But it wasn't the story that was the revelation. It was the presentation.
Open the book and you immediately find yourself in an amazing world of line art, comic book pages, fantastic fonts and typeset pages. Illustrations give form to the characters that imagination can sometimes leaves incomplete. Huge two-page drawings, like the clock on page 2 and 3, cause the reader to switch between reading to interpreting (you have to tell the time yourself,) and then back to reading on page 4 then to comics on pages 5 and 6. The multimedia experience keeps the reader involved from the start. I loved it!
It seems that anyone can write a teen fantasy judging from the volume of new titles on any bookstore shelf. But something different can serve to get a teen who perhaps doesn't read to become a reader or those give those who like to read something different. G.P. Taylor isn't the new C.S. Lewis but he did come up with a great idea for a series of books.
This book was provided free of charge by the publisher as a review copy. The publisher had no editorial rights or claims over the content or the conclusions made in this review. Visit [...] for more information on this book.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Whacky, March 17, 2010
So what do you think goes bump in the night? Bet you didn't think it was a crazy magician sneaking around in a secret room in the basement intent on stealing a golden sarcophagus to fund another one of his demented inventions. But let's not stop there. Let's have identical twin and troublemaker Saskia Dopple be hiding in the sarcophagus when it's stolen. Add an undercover private eye, an architect named Indigo Moon and manga illustrations and this has got to be the whackiest book I've read in a long time.
Just like the last book, this one's incredibly fast-paced and has quite the complicated ending, but this time the quirkiness seems a bit forced. Even so, it was definitely worth the read.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Secrets, Lies, and Indigo Moons, September 6, 2009
I really enjoyed G.P. Taylor's first volume in THE DOPPLEGANGER CHRONICLES, THE FIRST ESCAPE. So when I saw that he had a second one out, I snatched it up. And after reading it through, I think I ended up liking THE SECRET OF THE INDIGO MOON better than the first.
The story picks up where the last one left off with some creepy sounds coming from the basement of Isambard Dunstan's School for Wayward Children. And Erik Ganger, the only boy living in the school, hears everything and goes to investigate. And that begins a furious ride to discover the truth behind some recent burglaries, a missing headmistress, and the Secret of Indigo Moon. Some old characters re-surface, and some new ones are added to the mix, making this ride just as exciting as in THE FIRST ESCAPE.
Like the first book, THE SECRET OF INDIGO MOON is told through traditional prose, comics, and atmospheric black and white photos. One thing I noticed right away was the improved quality in the comics. It seemed like the illustrators took a little more care and time rounding out the drawings and changing them up from the harsh lines and edges of the first one, really making it look classy and still fun.
New mysteries are added on in the last few pages, and the Dopple twins definitely have quite a few things to think about as they prepare to embark on another adventure. And it will be worth looking into what comes next for the young detectives...
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