*I received a copy of this book from Book Publicity Services in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.*
I finally got around to reading this book and though I was intrigued by the synopsis and other reviews which stated this might be the next HP or PJO, I was left feeling disappointed. The storytelling of HP and the humorous charm from PJO don't land in this book. I feel a little bad rating this so low when I know that I'm not the target audience, but I don't know that I would've been hooked by this book if I were still in middle school.

The plot sounds promising, and I did enjoy the facets of the mysterious, magical book (such as the cover illuminating as Thomas continued reading) but I just could not get into this. The beginning is slow and repetitive, and a lot of the writing and dialogue is pretty clunky and awkward. The pacing is uneven and skips around through mundane events, so you continually read about Thomas waking up, chatting with his mom, reading a bit of the book, going to school and then you start over again the next day. Also sidenote, but I could not STAND to read the passages from the Book of Sorrows. Every other word had an unnecessary -eth added to make it sound more old-timey and it was unbearable. I ended up skimming most of the middle part because it just wasn't interesting enough for me to be invested.

Some of the magical aspects of this book were cool, but overall it was a very uninteresting read for me. I might hand my copy off to my younger siblings to see if they might enjoy it more than I did.