I have two reviews to share with you today, for a double little treat 👀👌🏻 These are both sent from Walker Books (thank you so much!) and one is YA and the other is MG. So let’s dive right in 😌 Hope you enjoy!
The Tower At The End Of Time #2 by Amy Sparkes
Date Published: January 6th, 2022
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Publisher: Walker Books
Purchase: Book Depository, Blackwells
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Adventurous, magical and brilliantly funny sequel to The House at the Edge of Magic.
Nine and her friends have broken the curse on their marvellous, magical House, and are free to travel the worlds once more! Their first stop: The Wizarding Hopscotch Championships. There’s only one problem: the House is nervous about travelling – and gets the hiccups! Bouncing from world to world with every “HIC!”, they finally land at the championships, only for Flabberghast to have an unfortunate run-in with square number nine, and find himself faced with the terrible Tower at the End of Time. But maybe here they can find out how to cure the House’s hiccups, and Nine might finally discover who left her the beloved music box, and who she really is… A young middle grade novel full of humour, magic and mischief – and the second in a three book series.
This was a delightful Middle Grade book with so, so much whimsy and chaotic magic! It felt like Alice in Wonderland colliding with Howl’s Moving Castle — but instead this time it’s a very opinionated flying house. And the house is not having a great time considering it has been stationery for 3 years, and now taking off again has left it with a damaging case of the hiccups (it might even explode if this keeps up). Add in an electric array of characters including a bizarre wizard, a talking spoon, a troll, and Nine herself (an orphan who just wants a family!!) and you have a book that is very charming and light-hearted to read.
A small confession here is that, I didn’t know it was a sequel! I was graciously gifted a copy as a surprise, so I just cheerfully dived and was there like, “Hmm, this feels like a sequel? But maybe not.” Well, it was. 😂 That said, I think it was enjoyable on it’s own, but I definitely recommend starting with book one. I’m curious about the origin of Nine and how she came to be tangled up in this moody house. I did feel like Nine didn’t have much agency for most of the book, so I wonder if book 1 set up her character more.
The style is also great for young kids too, with lots of nursery rhyme references and silly magic (hopscotch competitions! magical tea cupboards! enchanted houses with the hiccups!) so it was definitely geared at the littlies. There is a tower of doom to traverse and answers to be found to difficult questions, but at the heart of the book is found-family and lots of inventive problem solving.
A cute read for sure!
The Revelry by Katherine Webber
Date Published: January 6th, 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Publisher: Walker Books
Purchase: Book Depository, Blackwells, Dymocks
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A story of best friends, bad luck and the consequences of breaking the rules in a town built on secrets and superstitions.
I am girl of Ember Grove, and these are my woods… Growing up in Ember Grove, Bitsy Clark knows better than to mess with the long-held traditions of her hometown. Until her best friend, Amy, persuades her to sneak into the Revelry – the end of school party in the woods, to which only those leaving are invited. When she wakes the next day, Bitsy can’t remember anything from the night before. Weirder still, whenever she tries to speak about the Revelry, Bitsy chokes on the words. But this is just the beginning, and what starts out as a run of bad luck starts to feel like a curse. As Bitsy’s life goes from bad to worse, things only get better and better for her best friend. It’s as if there’s only so much luck to go round and Amy’s getting all of it…
This is a YA contemporary with just a pinch of fantasy, to keep you guessing if everything Bitsy goes through is real…or not. It’s set in a small odd little town, where every year there’s a secret and magical Revelry. Only accessed by invitation to those graduating high school. It’s the Once In A Life Time experience and NO one talks about it afterwards, though it’s definitely said to change your life. The story is told by Bitsy Clark who is dying to get into the Revelry early. She sneaks in with her bestie, Amy, but when they wake up the next morning…they have no idea what happened. The only thing Bitsy knows is that she’s cursed. When something good happens to Amy, something terrible happens to Bitsy. Their friendship starts fracturing big time as the little things grow. Jobs are lost. Embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions happen at school. Bitsy feels like she’s failing at every turn and, worse, Amy doesn’t even seem to care.
So the interesting thing about this is that it’s VERY easy to wonder: is the curse real? Or is Bitsy just being extremely catty to her best friend? There are a lot of coincidences, and a lot of moments where Bitsy’s bad decisions just come back to bite her. I think the book was taking a look at teen girl friendships. How bitterness and cutting behaviour can come out of nowhere, and it can ruin everything if you let it.
Bitsy got more and more focused on herself and her perceived woes that she really treated Amy badly the whole way through. Downside to this — Bitsy was pretty unlikeable. Her selfishness towards Amy was hard to forgive.
I did love the concept of the Revelry, and the snippets of magic in the woods (the strange girl! the history of their little town slowly coming out and dark secrets revealed). It’s also a super fast read, bite sized and concise. If you enjoy books like Moira Fowley-Doyle and The Hazel Wood, this is one to check out.
I really enjoyed The House at the Edge of Magic and now I’m even more keen to read the second book in the series 🙂