📚A #YoungAdult #Fantasy Set In A Circus. Rosie’s #Bookreview Of The Invisible Circus by Lindsey Bakken

The Invisible Circus by Lindsey Bakken
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

The Invisible Circus is a young adult fantasy story.

Drifting teenager Mickey is offered a summer job with a circus; it’s a big step away from home.

A freak meteor strike sends Mickey to hospital, and circus owner Titus promises to help keep Mickey’s experience out of the media. However, during her recovery, Mickey is shocked to find that she now has the ability to become invisible. Immediately Titus sees her as his next marketable opportunity to pull the circus out of financial difficulties.

The unusual circus setting provides a good background for this story, which I liked. While the idea of invisibility was good, I would have liked more emphasis on the link to the meteor strike to make the invisibility really believable.

Mickey is a teenager with erratic moods, poor communication skills and injuries from the meteor strike. She’s had plenty of recent hardships, but I found all her teen angst overpowering as the story progressed. Using Mickey’s invisibility in the circus ring was fun, I would have enjoyed a few more descriptions of her act to make picturing it easier in my mind.

There are a couple of mystery sub-themes which I believe will continue to be solved in the next book. There were also some good secondary characters, particularly Eve and Chewy.

Overall a good setting and story idea which I thought could have been tweaked to make sure that every scene helped move the story forward and that important elements shone through.

Book description

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The world as you know it, but with a dash of the fantastical.

When Michelle (Mikey) leaves home to work a circus job for the summer, she dreams only of shaking the depression that haunts her. But she gets more than she bargained for after a freak accident leaves her with the power to turn invisible.

Desperate to carve a future for herself as a performer, eighteen-year-old Mikey must learn to control her dark emotions and mysterious gift. But not everyone is glad to have a new performer, and Mikey must balance being “other” in a world dominated by flashy promises and hidden secrets.

Between a suspicious death no one talks about, guys vying for her attention, and her boss’s hidden agenda, Mikey has her work cut out for her.

As her life and power spiral out of control, she’ll have to choose carefully who to give her loyalty—and love—to.

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‘The author has had lots of fun creating this magical world’. Rosie’s #Bookreview of #YoungAdult #Fantasy In The Name Of The Otherworld by Hermoine Lee.

In the Name of the Otherworld by Hermione Lee

3.5 stars

In The Name Of The Otherworld is a young adult fantasy story. The main protagonists are fourteen-years-old and I would say that this story is suited to the younger end of the young adult genre, or even older children.

The story revolves around Alexandria, an orphan, who can make odd things happen, especially when she feels very emotional. She is teased and bullied at school, even named as a witch by some. One day she and three school friends are lured into a magical fountain and are transported to a place called the Otherworld. Here she meets her real parents, the king and queen, and she learns of a quest that she must go on to save it from the evil leaders of the Underworld.

Alexandria and her three friends discover that they are descendants of four founders of the magical world, and they are bestowed special gifts to help them during the quest. They set off with two Elders, adults from the magical world, who will train them in the art of warfare and help them tackle the dangers they meet on their journey.

The author has had lots of fun creating this magical world; she has embraced elements of her favourite fantasy stories, I was particularly reminded of the Harry Potter stories and Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. Some of my favourite parts in this story were the animals and the magical skills of the four girls.

The chapters are written from the points of view of differing characters; however, all the characters had the same ‘voice’ and any differences in character did not come across. Another area which I thought could use a bit more thought were the descriptive passages of the settings, not all, but some were too detailed and made me want to skip past them.

There’s lots to praise about this book, as it has some good moral lessons and there is nothing dark or frightening, so it is well suited to the younger reader. I wish the author well in her writing journey; I’m sure with more experience she will develop her own writing style to enhance her prose.

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Regarded as a witch and alienated by the majority of her peers, fourteen-year-old orphan Alexandria Richardson wants to be anybody but herself. However, this all changes one day, when the mysterious fountain in her school transports her and her three classmates to a world of magic— the Otherworld. The four of them are brought to the palace of the Otherworld on the rulers’ orders, and the shocking truth of Alexandria’s identity and parentage is revealed. As Alexandria then participates in a miraculous adventure with her companions, she explores the depths of courage, kindness, and friendship. But will she make it safely back to the Otherworld? Or will she eventually yield to her biggest enemy, someone no other than herself?
It’s not just an adventure. It’s a journey of growth and redemption.

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Rosie’s #Bookreview Of #YoungAdult #Fantasy STORYBOOK, INC. by Parker Pace

Storybook, Inc. by Parker Pace

3.5 stars

Storybook, Inc. is a young adult fantasy about Mica Psmith, a teenager who is about to be expelled from her school. The Principal suggests that she signs up for a new programme to help people like her, at a special boarding school. 

Mica has an initial psychiatric test, after which she is sent from her home in Seattle to the school, near San Diego. However, before she arrives, her train is hi-jacked. Frightened and unable to trust most of the passengers, Mica decides to make her way back home, with Roman, a young man she sat next to on the train. 

The journey is rather odd, with events and people that seemed out of place. The pace of the story is extremely fast with little time to contemplate the plausibility of a situation. 

I don’t wish to give away any spoilers, so I will move on to my thoughts about the story as a whole. This would work so well on screen because of the vast numbers of characters, but in a book I found it impossible to form pictures of them all. Add to this the constant change of scenery, and you have another reason for this to work better as a film rather than a piece of fiction. I did guess the ending, so there was no big surprise for me, but then I’m not the target audience. Overall an interesting concept, but it didn’t work well as a piece of fiction for me. 

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No sooner is clinically depressed heiress Mica Psmith expelled from the twelfth grade than the principal of her high school offers her a unique proposal. She can graduate on time if she enrolls in a secretive boarding school whose motto—The Program will change your life or your money back—is vaguely chilling.

In spite of reservations (if there’s one thing she doesn’t care for it’s meddling, and Principal Goodman is a meddler), Mica enrolls in the Program, setting into motion a bizarre series of events. Though at first the tricks seem harmless, the events grow increasingly more interconnected and dangerous. Alone except for her traveling companion, Roman, Mica begins to fear for her life.

Terrified of the growing possibility that the Program is little more than a theatrical con game, or worse, of the very real possibility that it is a death plot, Mica and Roman risk everything to uncover the truth. But is Roman really watching out for Mica or is he tied to the criminals tracking her every step?

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