I did not remember when I first requested this audiobook that I have already read this book. Granted, I read this book almost exactly 10 years ago and with the number of books that I read, forgetting a few of them is to be expected. At the time that I read the book the first time, I had not read nearly as many middle grade and young adult works as I have in the years since because I had just gotten back to teaching middle grade. That perspective and the different format in which I read the book combined to increase my enjoyment of the narrative. Myers did a phenomenal job crafting and narrative that tells the story of a normal that no one wants for their kids, a normal where kids die all too young in senseless violence. The ending also makes the title of the work incredibly poignant. I’m glad that I had an opportunity to revisit this work.
When I read the first graphic novel in this series, I had no intention of continuing. The only reason I read book 2 is because of the word, cobalt, and a HRCYED prompt for which I needed one more book with an element in the title. My opinions of the structure of the fantastical world in the first book have not changed in book 2. The world building leaves a lot to be desired, especially considering the target demographic for the graphic novel series. This time I mean it when I say that I will not continue this series.
Rozakis is fast becoming an auto – buy author for me. While I enjoyed the first book in this series a little bit more than this one, I continue to enjoy the way that Rozakis turns the banal and mundane of everyday life into the fantastical. This book was a fun, cozy, enjoyable read.
I think that the first book that I read by Yoon must have been a one-off for me. While I was intrigued by a bit of magical realism that Yoon made the centerpiece of the narrative, everything about the main character and her journey flowed in highly predictable ways. Nothing about the narrative, surprised me. That’s not a good sign. Unfortunately this book will be leaving my personal collection.
This book is a powerful story. In this story, a semi autobiographical retelling, the main character sneaks her way to Sri Lanka when her father gets a chance to return after many years of not being able to. She has never been back to the country of her birth and has spent all these years separated from her mother. Most people no little to nothing about this Sri Lankan civil war that was the cause of the fracture of the main character’s family, and also something that continued when she and her father were traveling in Sri Lanka. With just that, I already felt hooked by the narrative. Then I looked at the date at the beginning of a chapter and remembered what other major historical event occurred in that area of the world. This book was phenomenally done and I highly recommend it.
The narrative engaged me right from the start. I found the way that the author structured the opening of the novel intriguing and motivating to keep reading. I also think that the author did a really good job sharing the representation of the indigenous people of Costa Rica as the narrative continued, however, I felt a little disappointed in the lack of tension that the narrative seemed to expect to have been built by what I’ve been laid out so far in the story. I think that the story that the author wanted to tell would’ve been better served in a different genre, one other than the murder mystery that it reported to be. Towards the end of the narrative, I felt conflicted with how I felt about the novel because of the other, really good things that they father was doing with the narrative.
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