Reviews with content warning for Child death - Keeper of the Lost Cities

I really wasn't convinced about this book at first and the only reason I didn't dnf was because I found this wonderful audiobook on youtube by a girl reading in her backyard. Her voice was so lovely and I could hear her family in the background sometimes, or her voice being muffled for a second when she adjusted her position, and twice she made a mistake pronouncing a word and did a little chuckle and I absolutely LOVED the experience; it felt so much as if she was reading the book sitting next to me and made me feel so cozy. I am sure this affects my opinion on the book- in fact I don't think I would have read past the first chapter if it wasn't for this lovely audiobook. However the story actually picks up after a while and I felt myself getting more invested and intrigued. Especially the last few chapters were really exciting and action packed. Overall a really basic fantasy story about a special girl who finds out she has powers and goes to a magical school and saves the world etc etc a lot of breaths that had been held unrealised were released throughout the book and the characters were just quite bland, mostly white, and heteronormative. I did really enjoy the interactions between Sophie and Grady and Edaline though.

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melplays9000's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I totally get why people hate this book, it definitely has its flaws. I actually started off thinking I was going to be one of the people who hated it. By the end though I thought it was pretty good. I liked how quick and easy it was, I found myself wanting to go back to it over and over. Everything in this book comes quite easy to Sophie and anything that doesn’t is quickly skimmed over. I found this frustrating at first but it actually made for a relaxing reading experience. I found I didn’t have to worry much about what was happening plot wise and could concentrate more on the relationships between the characters which were my favorite part. Each character has depth and I love how slowly that is being revealed. Give me the slow burn friendships! My favorite character so far is Edaline because she’s vulnerable and I want to protect her, but I’ve got many close seconds.

I did not however, like how we don’t even get to go into most of the lessons? Just fade to black? What the hell, I want to build relationships with the teachers and learn about the world as Sophie is learning about it! We started off on the same page but now she’s so far ahead of me. Overall I felt that a lot of potentially interesting moments we just didn’t get to see. Also the line “let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding” came up 3 times, which gets minus points. My main criticism to be honest is just how quickly time was passing and we just jumped from main event to main event, very little down time, but then again this book is already 500 pages.

Overall it’s not the best written book ever. Or the best plotted. But I enjoyed it for what it was. Fast and spicy which seems to be my theme recently. Good vibes. 4 Stars.

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totallyshelfaware's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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crunchycrystals's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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