Keeper of the Lost Cities: Booktalk
January 22, 2021Hey everyone! I recently finished the Keeper of the Lost Cities, that is, the first book, and I absolutely loved it! So, I decided to do a booktalk, for those who have read it and heads up: This will contain spoilers!
Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger
Published: October 2nd 2012
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 497 (hardcover)
Series: Keeper of the Lost Cities #1
My Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Plot:
Sophie Foster is a completely normal 12-year-old who doesn't quite fit in with her family. She just has one other issue—she's a Telepath. Our story begins in a museum, where Sophie's trying to block out thoughts of her classmates when a mysterious—but good-looking—kid comes up to her and whisks her away on a beam of light to another world. Sophie is incredulous at what she hears—she's an-an elf? Her parents aren't who she thinks they are and as the story continues, her enigmatic backstory is slowly unfolded.
Thoughts:
I started this book with the hope of reading some slow-paced middle-grade fiction after the fast-paced intricate young adult novels I'd been divulging in lately, and I'm glad to say that's exactly what I got. Booktalk, as I'm told is split into two generally—Pros and Cons. One section for the good stuff and the other one for the bad not-so-good stuff. At the end of the post I weigh the options and then just see who wins. (I'm leaning toward the Pros—but all in good time!)We'll begin with the good stuff, shall we?
If there's something other than the mystery of—who on Earth the bad guy could possibly be!—that's prompting me to read the next book, it's Shannon's exquisite sense of humor. It isn't sadistic, or even just a lame pun, but actual events building up to this hilarious situation. It's witty and sharp and obviously extremely engrossing.
And then the relationships between characters which is just so well done! She and Biana become really good friends by the end of the story, and Dex is still her best friend, which I think is the sweetest friendship in the whole story. Then came Keefe and I think he's just such a funny character!
Mostly, this book overcame it's rocky start by winning my heart. Everything in the latter half of the book was completely adorable. Sophie gets a cute little animal sidekick, bonds with the mean girl, and has a couple really sad moments with her foster parents. Suddenly, I found myself caring. Also, jokes! This book makes funnies! I like funnies.
The pacing significantly improved from around 70 pages onward. As soon as the school setting was introduced and things were, let's say, settled, the story flowed seamlessly in a way that was both natural and gripping. The classes were super fun, the character antics and events as well, and all the while there was this air of mystery lingering that kept me interested and had me coming up with many theories. It felt like a genuine school experience with an investigating lead and a kind of distant larger threat that said lead is too young to know that much about. Which was really hooking and made the book unputdownable.
Sophie's relationship with Grady and Edaline was so sad and precious. She's helped them attempt to move on and live their lives normally and happily. In return, they act as such good parents to her even if they do face obvious indecision. They're so healthy for each other.
The magic system was so cool! Telepaths, Empaths, Vanishers, Conjurers, Impacters, etc. I'm certainly excited to learn more about these abilities and what they can branch out to. I'm particularly curious about Empaths. The magic in this book was extremely unique, which I adored. I loved learning about all the new magical words and how all these elves had all these different powers. It was super interesting and intriguing. I also really enjoyed the dog thingy that Elwen had.
I'm so happy that I decided to read this books. I have book 8.5, and I want to read all the previous books before I read it because in the past I would just read the new release without any refreshment of what conspired previously and find myself lost.
Especially considering this is a middle-grade series, I could really appreciate there being so many parental figures that were involved in the younger mains' lives. Alden, Elwin, Grady, Edaline, Tiergen - they were all really present and made to be unique and interesting. It's a common issue I have when authors neglect adults in their cast, depicting them as stale, worrisome and or authoritative people who think they know what's up but really don't, instead focusing all their efforts into the younger characters in order to achieve optimal quirkiness with them alone. Edaline and Grady, specifically, hooked me.
First of all, this was a wonderful book. I could not have predicted those brilliant plot twists and how her friendship with Biana would turn out. But, just because this was such an easy-to-read novel with a charming storyline, it doesn't mean it has no faults. For example, this could literally be a retelling of Harry Potter with a female protagonist.
All wizards elves perform spells have gifts which enable them to do magic and Harry Sophie soon learns that there are three Unforgivable Curses gifts that are disastrously evil : the Killing Curse, the Cruciatus Curse and the Imperius Curse the Pyrokineticsm, Infliction and Mermerizing. She also learns to play the wizard’s elven game of Quidditch Catch, which the protagonist is excellent at, and that there are other people who don’t really like her like Malfoy Stina. And then Harry Sophie has two friends, an extremely clever Hermione Dex and a play-around Ron Keefe. Harry Sophie is always getting hurt and ends up in the hospital wing school healing center where a really helpful doctor: Madame Pomfrey Elwin heals him her.
I honestly wish I was kidding.
Oh and speaking of diversity, there are the odd olive skinned gnomes who work for he elves in comparison to the elves that have beautifully brilliant fair skin and sparkly blue eyes. The obliviousness to the real-life, historical and racial implication of this point is completely mind-blowing and what made me enraged rather than potentially amused by the book. Why proffer books to our generation if they haven't got an inking of hope toward diversity? Why?
Because it turns out Sophie is the specialest little snowflake that you ever did see. Anything an elf can do, Sophie can do better. No, best. Sophie can do it backwards and upside down and with her eyes closed and when she was a fetus. It was quite exhausting to spend the whole beginning of the book discovering all ninety-thousand of Sophie's mystical gifts. "No elf in a thousand years has had THAT ability! No elf has ever had BROWN eyes!"
And the money. That part is really, really weird. Why would anyone want to work if they're given 5 million pieces of money, which would each equal a million dollars? Someone help me see sense here!
Conclusion:
All in all, the good outnumbers the bad like 4 to 1, so good wins, doesn't it! What about you? Do you disagree with me on some aspects? Do you agree with me on some? Feel free to express yourself in the comments; just remember to be respectful to everyone's opinions and everyone will respect yours!
2 Comments
This was so perfect, Maya! I also noticed quite a few similarities with Harry Potter—it's noted down quite well here. What did you think of the ending?
ReplyDeleteOh I thought the ending was a bit confusing, as they didn't even mention the villains name properly—but the suspense is really building up for the next book!
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