Scan barcode
marydrover's review against another edition
5.0
This was SO GOOD. It followed Mara, an orphan, who works for a powerful mage diving into the ocean to find cool things for the mage’s collection. While following a lead about some spooky bones, Mara tries to use a bit of magic to find the bones. Magic in the City of Islands is done through song, and so Mara sings an old fishing song her mother used to sing to her that has always been a comfort. Expecting nothing, Mara is rightfully shocked when the ocean sings back. Even wilder is that the bones she finds are not just ordinary bones–they’re the bones of strange, hybrid animals that haven’t been seen since the time of the founders.
Gosh, the lore in this is just so well done and so lovely. So much of it was fresh, too! There was never a moment where I kind of nodded, like yeah that makes sense, I’ve seen this bit of lore at work in other stories before. No! All of it was new and fun and exciting. The writing was really excellent, too, which I did know would be the case going in (I’ve read two of Wallace’s YAs), but it was so lovely to witness. I adored every single character, from Mara as the MC to all of the well-developed (and diverse!) side characters. Everything about this was fantastic, and it’s definitely gone into my favorite middle grades.
Gosh, the lore in this is just so well done and so lovely. So much of it was fresh, too! There was never a moment where I kind of nodded, like yeah that makes sense, I’ve seen this bit of lore at work in other stories before. No! All of it was new and fun and exciting. The writing was really excellent, too, which I did know would be the case going in (I’ve read two of Wallace’s YAs), but it was so lovely to witness. I adored every single character, from Mara as the MC to all of the well-developed (and diverse!) side characters. Everything about this was fantastic, and it’s definitely gone into my favorite middle grades.
bethmitcham's review
4.0
Great magic system that isn't fully explored because the protagonist is a beginner and self-taught. This book doubles down on the orphan -- Mara loses two sets of parents before the book even begins, and fights back to learn trust even while reshaping the magical understanding of her island-nation. Grit and determination are her trademarks, as well as compassion and loyalty. The actual adventure is fairly straightforward, but the moral implications give it weight.
yuna's review
4.0
Fun middle grade adventure fantasy story. I enjoyed Mara a lot--plucky but not perfectly fearless, resourceful, caring of her friends tempered by a healthy dose of self-involvement. Liked the worldbuilding a lot and wish we could've seen more of the mage society, though there wasn't really time/space within this book. My only qualm is that the book was a bit crowded with characters, especially sort-of antagonists. I liked the two main Big Bads, but there were a few other forces all working against Mara that, for me, ended up taking away from the conflict with the two Big Bads.
larondaflyingpaperbacks's review
4.0
You can see my full review here!
This story was more that I thought it’d be and it made my heart happy. The world building and lore was interesting; Some aspects of the magic system were a bit confusing, but not to the point where I couldn’t follow the story. Yet it was the main character that captured my heart. Mara was such a relatable lead- ambition yet insecure, caring, smart- I felt her loneliness and her hunger to make a name for herself. I was strangely emotional, especially towards the end. It was really good.
06/25--This story made me weirdly emotional?
*I received an eArc of this book from the Publishers through Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*
This story was more that I thought it’d be and it made my heart happy. The world building and lore was interesting; Some aspects of the magic system were a bit confusing, but not to the point where I couldn’t follow the story. Yet it was the main character that captured my heart. Mara was such a relatable lead- ambition yet insecure, caring, smart- I felt her loneliness and her hunger to make a name for herself. I was strangely emotional, especially towards the end. It was really good.
06/25--This story made me weirdly emotional?
*I received an eArc of this book from the Publishers through Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*
aseaoftomes's review
This was such a quick and fun read, but it ended up being a lot darker than I was expecting.
This book follows our main character Mara, who lives in a world made up of islands (an archipelago honestly) and is a diver who retrieves artifacts from the ocean floor and delivers them to a master. This world had an ancient society who has now been lost, so they're trying to find relics from that time. Mara ends up gaining favor with the master and sent on a quest under the sea and what she gets is a lot more than she bargained for.
The writing of this book was pretty well done. It was a fast-paced book, flowed nicely and was just fine in general. You know by now, I tend not to pay too much attention to writing when I read, except in very specific cases.
The plot was very interesting, it took all kinds of interesting twists and turns (most of which I saw coming overall, but still fun regardless) and was fast moving and kept you wanting to know what was going to happen next. This book had a bit of a mystery aspect to it, but it was also fairly dark and had themes of death, experimentation and the like in it.
The world building was great. I would honestly read an entire book about this world because I really enjoyed it. As I mentioned earlier, this world is a whole culture based on different islands. There was also the whole history of this ancient culture that we're trying to find out and how it all ties together. The magic system in this was primarily done through songs and language which I really enjoyed. I can be picky with music magic, but I thought it was done really well here. Also just the every day lives of the people who lived here was lovely to see. Honestly I wish we got to spend more time exploring the world because I think we only got a smattering of what it could be. I hope the author writes more in this world someday, even though the story wrapped up nicely in the end, I felt like there was more to explore.
Finally, the characters. I'm not going to go into too much depth about them because their interactions and personalities are what drove the story, but I loved Mara as our main character - she's so inquisitive and determined and ambitious (she's quite Slytherin-like if you ask me) and I just loved getting to see her adventures and how she gets in and out of different situations. I loved the friendships we got to see as well. The main one between Mara and Izzy was great and I honestly loved their dynamic a whole lot. Another was the relationship between Mara and Fish Hook. I loved them a lot as well. Overall the relationships and interactions between the characters was well done.
Overall, I really enjoyed this; the plot and writing we well done and made me want to keep reading, the world building was lovely and I wanted more of it because I felt like it wasn't enough and the characters and all of their interactions were lovely to read about. I'd definitely recommend giving this one a read if you haven't already.
This book follows our main character Mara, who lives in a world made up of islands (an archipelago honestly) and is a diver who retrieves artifacts from the ocean floor and delivers them to a master. This world had an ancient society who has now been lost, so they're trying to find relics from that time. Mara ends up gaining favor with the master and sent on a quest under the sea and what she gets is a lot more than she bargained for.
The writing of this book was pretty well done. It was a fast-paced book, flowed nicely and was just fine in general. You know by now, I tend not to pay too much attention to writing when I read, except in very specific cases.
The plot was very interesting, it took all kinds of interesting twists and turns (most of which I saw coming overall, but still fun regardless) and was fast moving and kept you wanting to know what was going to happen next. This book had a bit of a mystery aspect to it, but it was also fairly dark and had themes of death, experimentation and the like in it.
The world building was great. I would honestly read an entire book about this world because I really enjoyed it. As I mentioned earlier, this world is a whole culture based on different islands. There was also the whole history of this ancient culture that we're trying to find out and how it all ties together. The magic system in this was primarily done through songs and language which I really enjoyed. I can be picky with music magic, but I thought it was done really well here. Also just the every day lives of the people who lived here was lovely to see. Honestly I wish we got to spend more time exploring the world because I think we only got a smattering of what it could be. I hope the author writes more in this world someday, even though the story wrapped up nicely in the end, I felt like there was more to explore.
Finally, the characters. I'm not going to go into too much depth about them because their interactions and personalities are what drove the story, but I loved Mara as our main character - she's so inquisitive and determined and ambitious (she's quite Slytherin-like if you ask me) and I just loved getting to see her adventures and how she gets in and out of different situations. I loved the friendships we got to see as well. The main one between Mara and Izzy was great and I honestly loved their dynamic a whole lot. Another was the relationship between Mara and Fish Hook. I loved them a lot as well. Overall the relationships and interactions between the characters was well done.
Overall, I really enjoyed this; the plot and writing we well done and made me want to keep reading, the world building was lovely and I wanted more of it because I felt like it wasn't enough and the characters and all of their interactions were lovely to read about. I'd definitely recommend giving this one a read if you haven't already.
More...