Jake and his sister Kady are thrown into another mythical world of the past, this time with a lost tribe from Egypt. Jake's old friends are pulled into the desert with him, and they must fight to survive in the strange land. Once the young Princess Nefertiti takes them as captive slaves to the capital city, the dangerous plans of the Skull King become apparent, and even the Princess will turn to Jake for help in fighting against that ancient evil. Surrounded by mystical beasts and magical stones, Jake and his friends are in the thick of another wild adventure!

I LOVE the action in this story! The plot takes a million twists and turns, the puzzles and mysteries keep me guessing, and I can barely stop reading because every scene flows into more action.
The world building is fantastically imaginative! So many little creatures, and strange landscapes, and burning magical objects that do weird things! I was fascinated by all the beautiful and horrifying aspects of this new world.

I'm a little disappointed that there isn't much character development in this book. We had a lot of it in the first book, developing friendships, establishing characters' personalities and strengths. Not as much of that in this one. Characters feel a little static. They are still good characters, and they DO have their moments of good dialogue, but they haven't changed or grown much since the last book.

I wish the rest of the series was written already!

This Christian book is designed to be read in daily or weekly increments over 6 weeks, but I read it all in two days! It has reflective questions at the end of each section that can be answered alone or in a group study.
I loved that this book is saturated with Scripture! Almost every other page quotes Scripture or refers to a Bible example. The writing is thoughtful, and exhorts the reader to think carefully about God's Word, and to examine our hearts circumspectly. It really puts a spotlight on the truth of spiritual warfare, and how our sexual nature plays a large part in that battle.

A good portion of the book deals with our spiritual and sexual identities, and how we can deceive ourselves into thinking that those identities are separate from each other. I was glad that the major focus of the book is God's love and forgiveness in the midst of our sin.

One of the main focuses of the book is to explore how some particular emptiness in our lives drives us to fill that space with sexual sin. And the book does a wonderful job of showing how only God, only the love of Christ, can fill that emptiness and bring us what we truly desire- emotional intimacy with God. This is illustrated with personal stories and short testimonies from real (anonymous) people, who declare God's grace and love through their own sexual struggles.

There are whole chapters full of practical advice for resisting temptation, but my favorite was the advice on how to know if the thoughts and feelings of sexual guilt or desire are coming from God or from Satan. Sometimes there are storms of wild thoughts racing through our heads, and it is so difficult to find the truth in all that chaos. Asking yourself, "Is that thought I'm having from God or is it a lie of Satan?" and having a real logical way to KNOW the difference is invaluable when navigating the murky waters of sexual morality.
I really loved the practical advice and real-life answers in this book!

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher/author through NetGalley, in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.

Wow! I was blown away by the original novel, and so intrigued by the world of the Silos; so experiencing it again in graphic novel form was wonderful!

I love the artwork, and the mystery. There's a lot of good suspense put into place just by how the panels are set up and how the dialogue follows from one page to the next. The colors reflect the mood of each chapter, and I love how darkness and light are used to portray the darkness of their ignorance.

I really enjoyed how each character was drawn just the way I had imagined them! And the way the stairs look was exactly what I had pictured. Seeing my imagination coming to life on the page was exciting!

It definitely tells a good story, but I was disappointed that we didn't see much of what the Silo actually looks like. It's a lot of close-ups on people's faces, and I didn't really get a good sense of how the Silo functions as a whole. What are ordinary people doing while all the mysterious intrigue is going on? What are the day to day routines of the Silo? The world-building was lacking in this graphic novel. Of course, I know that a graphic novel has to condense the original story, but I would have liked a little more set-up for the world.

Same thing with the characters. There is a big focus on plot to the detriment of the characters. Almost all character-building or character development is completely lacking. At least in the original book, the characters had a little more time to interact, build relationships, establish some history, and grow into a complex person.

Even the original story didn't give me as much character focus as I like to see, but this graphic adaptation just jumped from plot point to plot point without giving us any time to even guess who the characters might really be. The result is that the characters are flat. We don't really care about them, because we are barely given time to learn their names or faces.
(Of course, I cared about the characters because I had already read the original story and I was greeting familiar names and faces that I already knew.)

I don't know if I'm disappointed or happy about this book. I definitely enjoyed reading it! Read it all in one go, and couldn't put it down! Beautiful art, excellent writing, but just needed some better macro-editing, I think. I guess what makes me frustrated is that it COULD have been so much better. The story has so much potential to be even more amazing, and it's sad to see a mediocre story instead. So much of the original story is lost, and all that depth of the world is gone, but I did enjoy the lovely art.

I adore this series! They are all so fun and wholesome! Rereading it over and over, this lovely book never loses its charm. From the first page, I'm immediately swept away into the adventures on the lake, following the Swallows as they set up their camp and declare war on the Amazons. I love every delightful character, and I love how with just a few well-chosen words, they each come to life and you feel what they feel as they navigate the wild waters of summer.
Forever a classic!

I enjoyed this story about a post-apocalyptic society where words are considered dangerous, and people are forced to use only The List, a small selection of words approved by the ruler of their small surviving community. Only the Wordsmith is allowed to know and use words outside of the List.
The main character, Letta, is apprenticed to the Wordsmith, and her love for the beauty of language is a major theme throughout the book. Letta uncovers a plot to rid the entire community of ALL their words, and she is caught in the midst of a desperate rebellion, full of intrigue and adventure. But is Letta willing to risk everything, just to save a few words?

I really loved Letta, because she's a wonderfully complex character, with contradicting traits that make her interesting. She struggles to overcome her fear, but feels like a failure, until she is inspired to protect those she loves and launches out to face the very thing that frightens her most. I loved following her internal struggle, and watching her question her beliefs and find a way to remake her view of the world.

Another great theme that unfolds through the story is the way that Letta connects to the people around her. She's recklessly generous in a harsh world, and her compassion for others gets her into trouble. There are such extremes of human nature portrayed through many of the side characters: people who will be cruel just because they can, and people who will be kind just because they can, expecting nothing in return.
Letta meets such different people on both sides, and it begins to shape her ideas about the world her community is creating, after the natural disaster that plunged most of the planet into the sea. If all the future of humanity depends on one little group of people, what kind of humanity do you want to see flourish? Letta has to answer what kind of person she wants to be, and who she will choose to be her true friends.

Most of the side characters are rather one-dimensional, and just sort of background filler; but the most important side characters are full of life and diversity. I wouldn't say they are "complex", but they didn't bore me either.
The best part was seeing Letta react to them. Letta's old schoolteacher who still feels concerned for the well-being of her old pupils, the mysterious renegade boy who stumbles into Letta's life with a bang, the wild-eyed mother who has lost her child, the rebel musician who plays sad music to express her grief; these characters brought Letta's community to life, and each of them highlighted another aspect of Letta's personality.

I did NOT like that there are passages set aside in italics at the end of some chapters with the internal thoughts of the villain, showing his motivations and a little backstory. I didn't think the story needed it. I was fine seeing things from just Letta's perspective. Multiple POVs is one of my pet peeves though, so it might not bother anyone else.

The world-building, other than the List itself, is just your basic town of post-apocalyptic survivors sometimes squabbling over water, food, and shelter. I did like the parts about the Wordsmith collecting words and recording them. Anything to do with Words or the List was interesting and new, and I liked that the world-building is detailed, if not exactly original.

I enjoyed the plot, but it was fairly predictable. There was only one thing at the end that actually surprised me. There are also some parts of the plot that felt forced or out of place. A couple of awkward scenes didn't flow very well with the story and felt as though they had been copy-and-pasted into the book to add drama or more romantic interest.

But mostly the action flowed very well from scene to scene, and just when you thought the heroes would start to make some progress toward their goals, they would encounter some huge setback or danger that threw everything into turmoil again.

There is some violence, torture, disease, and blood, and some of that also felt forced, like it was pushed into the story as a scare tactic, to shock the reader. But it also served a purpose in startling the characters into action, so it still works in the story.

The ending was much too quick, with several things left unexplained and characters left out. It needed a lot more denouement, and I was disappointed because it needed some better resolution. If that ending had just pulled everything in for a tight conclusion, I could have ignored some of the other plot problems.

I was very impressed with the writing style. The dialogue is fresh, and the author draws you into Letta's world by using a lot of body language and colors and smells. (Although sometimes the smells were a little overdone. I don't need to be told six times that Marlo smells like sage.)

What really made the writing excellent is the obvious love for vivid words. Sometimes the writing forces you to stop and consider one word. Just one. What does it really mean? What do I mean when I use that word? How does using this word change my life? How does it reflect the world around me? Would I give my life for the right to use that word?
Deep thinking going on.

At other times, the author would sneak an important word into a paragraph a couple of pages away from the first use of that word, and make you think about how your perception of that word has changed in the last two pages, because of what Letta is thinking and doing and experiencing. Suddenly the word "Hope" or "Warmth" has another meaning than it did two pages ago. Sneaky writing! I love sneaking writing that makes you think!!!

All in all, a good book with a decent plot, an excellent main character, and excellent writing. If the plot had just been a little more tightly woven, and the side characters a little more spirited, it would have easily been a four-star book for me.

Disclaimer: I received an ecopy of this book from the author/publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts and are not influenced by anyone.

Angela writes a letter to her fairy godmother, and is surprised when a fairy answers her letters. Angela and her friends become obsessed with reaching out to the fairy, determined to meet her and prove that fairy magic is real.

But this isn't really a story about three girls discovering a fairy; it's actually a story about a girl whose parents might get a divorce, and how she feels estranged from her father, and turns to her friends for comfort and advice.

This book was just sort of okay. The writing is nothing special. The characters are one-dimensional. The plot is boring.

The only interesting thing in the entire book is the girl who talks to animals, or at least she believes she can. And she's obviously disturbed crazy-pants nutso, and not a character that you can relate to, since her animal thing is her only personality trait. She's just the crazy girl in the background talking to squirrels. No depth at all.

I kept hoping that a little fairy magic would finally breathe some life into the story, but then I was even more disappointed in the treacherous ending. There are no magic adventures, only boring sleepovers. The dialogue is so mundane, I want to scream.