Publisher: Cedar Fort Books
Copy of novel received from Net Galley
Image and summary from cobblecavern.com:
What starts out to be a fun field trip to Ireland for Flin and his school debate team, turns into a life changing adventure. Flin and his teammates get swallowed by an earthquake and become trapped under the ocean inside a clear dome where they discover an unknown civilization. Join Flin and his classmates on a journey of a lifetime in this thrilling adventure story.
My thoughts:
I will be honest, this book was not one of my favorites that I've read recently. Perhaps it is just because I've been away from middle grade lit for too long. Of course there were fabulous elements to the story, but there were also some distractions that took away from the adventure.
The characters in this book vary in scope. Flin, the main character, and a few of the others are very well-created. Readers empathize with Flin, hate Parcell and his selfish father Sump, and cheer for the consummate sidekick Pilt. However, there were also a lot of other characters who came in and out of the story at random, and they got a bit difficult to keep track of! I needed a graphic organizer (which definitely made me miss middle school). I feel like the story, and the important characters, would have been strengthened if the extraneous characters were trimmed down a bit to allow the others to flourish.
The plot is creative and adventurous. I particularly enjoyed any portion of the storyline where the characters used a unique trait of theirs to get out of a difficult situation. For example, Edgar, one of the debate team members (I think?) is considered an outcast because of his proclivity for collecting hair. However, rather than letting this character remain an outcast, his odd collection ends up coming in handy. I feel like middle grade readers could absolutely relate to someone feeling like he doesn't belong. Similar to the characters, though, the plot gets overly confusing at times. There were moments that happened in real time, and then the time would speed up, and I felt there wasn't any indication that it was happening. This back-and-forth time lapse could get very confusing, especially for younger readers.
Content-wise, there wasn't a whole lot to worry me. Some of the bullying might upset very young readers, but I didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary for MG lit. Likewise, the intense moments in the novel were no more intense than some other favorite MG series, like Percy Jackson. The cover, I feel, would absolutely catch a younger boy's attention, which bodes well for hooking potential readers!
Overall, this is not a book I will be adding to my high school class, but I do think it will be happily placed in the hands of some dreamy, imaginative boys with a precocious reading ability (I had a whole crowd of those at my middle school!).
Other links of interest:
Book website with author info
Goodreads profile
Cedar Fort Books
Other Blog Tour Stops
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