While nowhere near a perfect book, I had a pretty good reading experience and think that kids in the target audience might also enjoy this, especially those who dream of grandeur in sports like one of the main characters. Some of the events in the plot are a bit far-fetched, but this is a middle grade novel, not a non-fiction recounting of events. While I would not go out of my way to obtain a copy of this book, I would definitely put it on my classroom shelves if I happened to obtain one.
I have never been interested in reading from this author duo , primarily because paranormal romance is not my genre. This book which got a traditional publication – different than many of this author duos previous Indie and self published works – has been getting a lot of buzz this year though. I have also heard rave reviews in a lot of the Booktube content that I have watched. Although I’m not sure whether Goodreads will put this in the fantasy or romantasy category, I figured I would give the book a go. I actually really enjoyed this story and think that this is a fantasy book with some romance, not a romantasy. I enjoyed the idea of a character from our modern world waking up in the world of her favorite fantasy series with no idea how she got there, determined to make things better and also feeling a little bitter because this fantasy world is a bit violent and messy. I may or may not pick up the sequel; it did not hook me enough to make it an auto buy or read but I would not be too hard put if “required” to read the sequel.
Unfortunately, this book followed a recent trend for me of second books duologies not quite living up to the first book. While I think that Kim did a better job in this book than Abe did in the Eva Evergreen series, I still did not connect to this book quite as much as the first book. I did really appreciate how Kim raised the stakes significantly surrounding the treatment of the dreampanions as well as the consequences of not actually explaining what certain items and areas mean. Kim did a really good job developing the relationships and showing how actions can have unintended consequences and how they can greatly affect the relationship that depend upon them.
I thought that this book was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the time travel aspect connected with Vincent van Gogh’s art. I mean, how would I not? I’m a Doctor Who fan. I also loved the oddball character that the main character interacts with (apologies, I have forgotten his name) and the friend that he makes along the way. This is not a perfect book, but it did provide the most fun I’ve had with a middle grade for a little while.
When entering this book into my reading, log, I discovered that I had read another book by this author, although I did not remember the name. It turns out that this author also wrote a non-fiction graphic work, recounting the same event. Both of these books were published the same year. That really does not make a lot of sense to me. This book dealt with complicated family history and how that played out for a boy with quirks of his own. The portions that the author spent focused on Junius were by far the best. The portions where he added in historical connections surrounding Junius’ heritage and the lake itself felt totally different and jarring. I think this book would’ve been much better served by the author taking out the connections to the lake, both historical and current to that day, 1980.
The author did a really good job with her historiography and her historicity. This is a work of history, not necessarily intended for the popular market. In that I mean that this narrative has an academic tone which befit the topic, but will not engender the book to many in the general public, who might not read academic works of history. I appreciated how the author handled the nuances of sexism and racism and explored have those played out and how women who held people as property during the antebellum south period. It’s not one that I will rush out to purchase to put on my shelves, but it definitely adds a great deal of context when studying this era of history.
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