It’s been a long time since I last posted. Mainly because I was too involved with books….? Yes! I was so into books that I couldn’t bring myself to write a book review. Anyways guys, I just read this amazing book by Garth Nix and here are my thoughts on this book!

Plot —-

Arthur Penhalington is just another school boy. It’s his first day on his new school where he gets another of his Asthma attacks and faces a hard time breathing. That’s when he sees a rather old looking person on a cart being pushed by a man who has long hair and a black robe. He overhears them to find that their names are Sneezer and Will.

“We can pass on the key to someone and not worry for the next ten thousand years”

Arthur believes it’s just a part of his hallucination during his asthama attacks. But little does he know that these people will be handing him some kind of key that’ll lead to a series if unexpected actions.

The key is nothing but a minute hand of some clock. And surprisingly the key helps Arthur breathe. Like ACTUALLY BREATHE LIKE ANY OTHER NORMAL PERSON. So he considers the key as a boon. But he doesn’t know what to do with the little book of maps that was handed over to him. He experiments with it and finds out that the key has some magical powers like any other fantasy book would have!

So gradually he notices a building that was quite not there at his locality but it appeared suddenly out of nowhere. Interestingly, only Arthur can see it.

The story continues when some dog faced creatures start following him in school and every literal place possible.

The story finally comes to it’s main theme when his school is set on fire and he discovers there’s some kind of sleeping disease being spreaded so everyone is in quarantine. Arthur learns that it’s is only him who has to get a cure and save the world by fighting creatures and facing some unexpected things.

My Thoughts —

This book was lying around my house since I was like in 6th grade and I finally decided to read it out of boredom during this quarantine. Am I glad I did? Hell yess I am! I had this bad notion about fiction ever since I read a bad fiction book but this book just opened the doorway to my interest in fiction again. Now I’ll just sort out the pros and cons of this book in the next section.

What I liked about the book –

1. Characters

Seriously, after the Harry Potter series I didn’t quite find any good fictional book. So partly it was my fault for judging a complete genre based on a single book, but this book has such amazing characters that it’s just like you are watching it’s movie. Believe me, every character has some speciality and some unique power! I loved it because this adds some extra details to the book.

2. The Setting

If you read my blogs you probably would have figured out by now, that I give utmost importance to the setting. My point is, I find it difficult to read a book without getting to imagine where the characters are actually in. And in this book, author Garth Nix, has marvelously presented the setting by specifying the surrounding of each scene. What’s more interesting is that each scene is like COMPLETELY different from the other one. If you are a Harry Potter or Charlie and the chocolate factory’s book fan, then you’d definitely love this book

3. The Flow

Seriously, this is the MOST IMPORTANT thing in a story. I tend to loose interest in the first 10 pages if the story doesn’t have a flow. And this book, just like any other Good book maintains an amazing flow.

What I didn’t like about this book —-

I will be honest here. I judge a book a lot. Like a hell lot before dropping a review or suggesting it to someone . So in this section I will express my true and honest Dislikes about this book.

1. The Description of characters

I said in the above section that the characters were described well. But they were described more in their abilities. I didn’t quite get to imagine them properly. Meaning, the author didn’t give me a description of the physical appearance of the characters.

2. Predictable

The story was simply predictable since the beginning. I knew what was going to happen at the end and who was going to turn out as what. Yeah, at some point I just turned over a few pages without reading and found myself reading what I predicted.

Final Thoughts—

You must be thinking I am probably crazy as I was continuously flipping my thoughts but this is what I felt reading this book. I enjoyed it coz it gave me a good experience but talking about the plot, I was highly disappointed with the predictable thingy. I guess it is solely not meant for my age group but I would recommend it to my younger cousins so that they get to read an amazing fiction novel!

It’s probably one of the longest book review I ever wrote . So if you are still reading this, thanks for sticking along and reading this whole thing. If you have Twitter, you can find me Fangirling over books, there as well. So if you expect more bookish content, you can follow me there by clicking on the menu bar just right above on your screen. Do let me know your thoughts on this book if you’ve ever read it and what you are reading currently. Feel free, to leave any feedbacks . Lastly I hope you are doing well and you and your family are safe! Until next time – Buh-bye!