Monday, December 5, 2011

Book Review: Deltora Quest 2



Review: #117
Title: Deltora Quest 2
Series: Deltora Quest 2 - all three books in one
Author: Emily Rodda
Read Before: yes
My Comments:
Cavern of The Fear – It’s a very good book, I was surprised at the quality of it. I remembered (vaguely) that this series was the worse out of the three, but it wasn't so bad right now. It started being intense almost immediately and it just got better, I liked how things were revealed bit by bit, and there was even a hint for the next series. The final fight against the monster at the end was a bit hard to follow but it was excellent, and the death was sad. A bit contrived at the end when they found the mouthpiece of the Pirran Pipe but not a bad book overall, 7.5/10.
The Isle of Illusion – I remembered that this wasn't such a great book but I was wrong, this time while I was reading it, I was hooked from the start til the finish, even though I knew what was going to happen.  The style of writing was great, and there is a lot of imagination on the author’s part, making the world of Deltora very interesting, it makes you want to know more about it.  The story in this second book was good and to the point, and I like the idea of the illusion Dome, and the different monsters that inhabit the underworld caverns, and how the author has actually created some plausible explanations on how the monsters there survive. This was a better book than the first in that it focused on the current quest a lot more (the first one had to spend some setting up the story), 8/10.
The Shadowlands – I think this is the book that got the short end of the stick, since the author decided to fit this into three books, the retrieval of the last part of the Pirran Pipe is really short, as in, only one chapter or so. After the elegant story of how they retrieved the second part of the pipe, this felt a bit weak and trivial. However, the saving of the Deltoran slaves were greatly executed, I was wondering how they would do it and the way that the author had written it was brilliant. I wouldn't have thought of it that way actually, and the way it all fits together, the doubts that each character had was resolved, in a nice way. And the final revelation of the secret plan that Lief had kept to himself (in great suffering) was brilliant, it threw me off and I didn't suspect anyway. However, all said and done, although the ending was great, the overall feel of the book was that it wasn't as good as the other two, 7/10.
Overall – I’ll recalculate my thoughts about this series, it is a great series and on par with the Deltora Quest 1 and 3. It was a very enjoyable read, especially one after another; they complement the series very well. We also see the relationships bloom (and setting it up for the next series), and the ending was really really good.
Rating: 8/10
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