The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a peculiar children’s story: its most striking moments are not of joy, adventure, discovery, or magic, but those that are traumatic, violent, and – unfortunately – realistic. The wondrous elements serve almost as an excuse to deal with those more grounded issues: fantasy is not the goal of the story, but …
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Written by Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines builds a preposterous but intriguing world, telling a story with lots of ups and downs, but that ultimately delivers with its great set of characters and surprising worldbuilding. In the world of Mortal Engines, cities exist on wheels. They’re moving entities that are always looking for prey: here, one city can eat another with …
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Seven Faceless Saints is a competent YA novel that successfully builds a compelling central dynamic between its main characters, even if it forgets to properly develop the main conflicts that define their world. The story is set in Ombrazia, a city where people blessed with magic become disciples and live separate lives from the unfavored, as magic is considered a …
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