A review by johanna_b
The Challenger by Taran Matharu

4.0

It's almost scary how much this book was made for me. There were dragons and pirates and gladiators and a whole load of other stuff that I love but never thought would work together in the same book. However, I was proven wrong. The plot was structured similarly to the first one in that the whole book is basically leading up to an event that lasts only a page or two but this time I didn't mind that as I knew what to expect and really enjoyed all the action leading up to it.

One thing I've found that I really appreciate about this series is that the author, who's a man, does a great job of portraying the females in his books, especially Amber. In the past I've read some books where the female characters written by men are just so cringe. But that wasn't the case here and it helped to make the character dynamics so genuine. I haven't found the time to pick up a lot of sequels lately but I'm really glad I was able to read this one and as soon as I finished reading it I reserved the third book from the library! I'm so glad I discovered this series and can't wait for the finale! Happy Reading :)