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A review by worldsunlikeourown
Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi
4.0
Read more reviews on my blog at Worlds Unlike Our Own.
War is on the horizon, and when news arrives that a powerful clairvoyant and her sister have been found, Aru, Mini and Brynne are sent to rescue them, and more importantly get them to the Otherworld safely so that any prophecy the clairvoyant issues cannot be heard by the demons. Things go awry however, and not only do the demons manage to hear said prophecy, but the two girls rescued, Sheela and Nikita, turn out to be the last Pandavas. As the devas race to do some damage control and handle the situation, Aru interprets the prophecy to mean that they need to find the Tree of Wishes, the Kalpavriksha, to win the war. This sets off a series of quests on the path to finding the tree which has been well hidden by the goddess of forests, with Rudy, the Naga prince joining them for the wildest ride yet.
I felt that Aru was markedly more mature in this book in some aspects, largely due to her discovering the side of the Sleeper who was just a man who wanted to be her dad before he became a monster. While it maintains the trend of a light hearted narrative, complete with hilarious pop culture references from Aru, the underlying serious tone was unexpected and I really did not expect a middle grade series to take this route - but I'm very happy that this story is starting to gain some significant depth, because I've always found it hard to take the mythological aspects in this series seriously. As someone who has learnt the real stories growing up, these characterizations are somewhat bizarre, and I tend to gloss over them and pay attention to the plot instead. However, this particular installment handled a few of the myths very well indeed. One nice touch was the scene at the Yamuna river with Mini - that was one particular incident I never thought would be mirrored in this series, and it was quite well written too.
I wasn't too fond of the two new additions to the team, and there wasn't all that much character development for either of them apart from a few glimpses into their life before they entered foster care. However, I'm looking forward to seeing more of the twins in the next book - but I'm even more excited to see what becomes of that brilliant cliffhanger. Another humorous, entertaining, fast-paced adventure in this series, and by far, the best one yet.
War is on the horizon, and when news arrives that a powerful clairvoyant and her sister have been found, Aru, Mini and Brynne are sent to rescue them, and more importantly get them to the Otherworld safely so that any prophecy the clairvoyant issues cannot be heard by the demons. Things go awry however, and not only do the demons manage to hear said prophecy, but the two girls rescued, Sheela and Nikita, turn out to be the last Pandavas. As the devas race to do some damage control and handle the situation, Aru interprets the prophecy to mean that they need to find the Tree of Wishes, the Kalpavriksha, to win the war. This sets off a series of quests on the path to finding the tree which has been well hidden by the goddess of forests, with Rudy, the Naga prince joining them for the wildest ride yet.
I felt that Aru was markedly more mature in this book in some aspects, largely due to her discovering the side of the Sleeper who was just a man who wanted to be her dad before he became a monster. While it maintains the trend of a light hearted narrative, complete with hilarious pop culture references from Aru, the underlying serious tone was unexpected and I really did not expect a middle grade series to take this route - but I'm very happy that this story is starting to gain some significant depth, because I've always found it hard to take the mythological aspects in this series seriously. As someone who has learnt the real stories growing up, these characterizations are somewhat bizarre, and I tend to gloss over them and pay attention to the plot instead. However, this particular installment handled a few of the myths very well indeed. One nice touch was the scene at the Yamuna river with Mini - that was one particular incident I never thought would be mirrored in this series, and it was quite well written too.
I wasn't too fond of the two new additions to the team, and there wasn't all that much character development for either of them apart from a few glimpses into their life before they entered foster care. However, I'm looking forward to seeing more of the twins in the next book - but I'm even more excited to see what becomes of that brilliant cliffhanger. Another humorous, entertaining, fast-paced adventure in this series, and by far, the best one yet.