Okay, I freely admit that part of my distaste for this book is that I'm just too old for it. I'm a twenty-year-old guy, which probably puts me at least seven years outside the target audience. I only read it because my little sister had it in her bag during a long car ride and offered it. So perhaps I'm not the best person to give this a fair review.
But...come on. I'm not THAT old. Harry Potter was great fun. Narnia was entertaining. The Dark is Rising books were intriguing, the Prydain Chronicles were riveting, even those Percy Jackson books were halfway decent. But this was just...I dunno, blah.
Pretty typical set-up for contemporary YA fantasy. Secret underground group of people with spooooooky powers, shamelessly cribbed from various mythologies with little interest in the original legends. Protagonist is the stereotypical plucky male (as opposed to the stereotypical Strong Female. Oh, she's there too, but the camera loves average-boy). Now all of this would be fine if the author had done anything even halfway interesting with it. But...she didn't.
This book feels like Chima wrote it with big dollar signs in her eyes. It sticks to the formula so closely I could probably have sketched out the basic plotline from the first few chapters' evidence alone. Boring teenage hero is in high school with a bunch of stock characters ("bitchy ex-gf", "bullying rich boy", "strong-but-gentle best friend", and "mysterious loner girl" all make heavy-handed appearances). He's always taken some sort of medication but never wondered what's in it or if he'll ever get better and be able to stop. Inevitably, he forgets it this one day, and randomly starts showing off his super powers, whereupon the "mysterious aunt" shows up to show him the path to his dessssstiny, but a bunch of bad guys have shown up too, and they're all going after a sword that's been in a grave for a coupla generations, but no one ever knew where it was till now (I mean, how could they? That would have taken, hm, actually checking three graveyards).
Anyway. Gets sword. Finds Yoda. Proceeds to train. Gets threatened by EVIL BAD GUYS, all the while blowing off concerned best buds and pursuing relationship with mysterious chick who anyone with half a brain can see is totally...wooooops, better not let that one slip!
Basically, the whole story feels contrived and silly. Our hero might as well be popping into existence in the first chapter. He has all the depth of a blow-up kiddie pool, and the supporting characters, with the sorta-kinda exception of Aunt Feminist-Babe, have the personalities of sitcom extras. There's no control over the world Chima's created. It's all "then this happened, then this happened". The characters don't respond emotionally to anything. They just stand around and say "dude, that was weird, hyuk hyuk". Are they all high? Has someone dumped laughing gas over this whole freaking town? Or is this just the author cutting corners everywhere she can, avoiding giving anyone realistic complaints because they're tough to write?
No one in this book seems capable of thinking. They all just go through the motions like automatons.
But enough ranting. Suffice to say, I found this book infantile and poorly conceived, a mediocre effort from an author who could do better, but is perfectly willing to spout off substandard crap because she knows she's operating for a young audience, many of whom don't know to expect better. This is just my opinion, but...avoid this book. I won't say it's complete trash, it's not like it's painful to read. But it just doesn't go anywhere, or do anything, that will interest you on any level except for the most superficial.
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