Review: #399
Title: The Search for WondLa
Series: WondLa - 1st book
Author: Tony DiTerlizzi
Read Before: no
My Comments: I haven’t read a book this good in a while. It is imaginative and the story sucks you in presenting you with a mystery that you can’t wait to find out what it is all about. The way it’s presented is ‘passive’, so it’s not in your face or too obvious, but slowly rises in importance. The pacing ramps up around two-thirds into the book, at that point, not relinquishing it’s hold on the reader it’s the classic case of “just one more page”. While reading the book, you feel like as if you’re exploring the world with the main character at the same time, instead of just reading it. The illustrations are nice and helps visualize some of the more unusual aspects of the world, but there is a flaw in that they’re presented at the start of the chapter. It won’t be much of a problem if it is not for the fact that these illustrations usually present something that hasn’t happened yet, but is going to happen soon, so they’re basically spoilers. Anyway, the characters were interesting, you root for them, and you feel the unfairness of it all when the bad guys keep going after then. Not only does the ending provide a cliffhanger, but there are also many unanswered questions which somewhat sucks. The ending was quite sad and emotional, especially as you have experienced a lot with them. Overall, this is a wonderful fantasy novel.
Rating: 7/10