This Mortal Coil, by Emily Suvada - Review

This Mortal Coil, by Emily Suvada

(Amazon, Simon & Schuster)

 

To say I’m not the biggest fan of the YA (Young Adult) genre would be a fairly accurate statement. In YA books, I find the romance quite often overwhelms the actual plot, and the personalities of the characters seem to be based entirely around their relationships. I realised a while back that this genre was just not for me. That being said, I recently discovered a YA book that wasn’t quite like the rest. 

Without further ado, let me introduce you to ‘This Mortal Coil’. Set in a world plagued by a lethal airborne virus, commonly known as Hydra, the plot centres around Catarina “Cat” Agatta. A series of flashbacks show that Cat was the daughter of Lachlan Agatta, the designer of the Influenza X vaccine and one of the world's best geneticists and foremost authorities on DNA. In a world where people are born with inbuilt panels, which they subsequently use to hack their genes, Lachlan’s knowledge was an invaluable resource. After the outbreak of Hydra, he had been kidnapped by Cartaxus, the government organization that had sprung up after the start of the worldwide pandemic. Cartaxus hoped that he would be able to recreate his previous work and come up with a vaccine against the Hydra virus before everyone was dead. As her father and best friend were dragged away by the Cartaxus forces, Cat managed to evade capture by hiding in the panic room of the house. 

That was more than two years ago. 

Magisterium: The Iron Trial, by Cassandra Clare

Magisterium: The Iron Trial (The Magisterium), by Cassandra Clare

(Amazon IN, Kindle IN, Audible IN)

(Minor spoilers)
This is a slightly unusual series in some ways. It is a mix of new and old. The old part comes from the fact that it is a fantasy tale and talks about magic, mages, unusual creatures, etc. The new part is the fact that the story has an unwilling protagonist. A 12 year old boy who hates magic and is unwilling to go to the Magisterium.

Callum Hunt, the protagonist of our story has a sad past, his mother is dead and his left leg was shattered when he was baby. Another thing that makes him unusual is his hatred for magic, but it is quite understandable as his mother was killed in the Third Mage War. Despite all of this he has a relatively normal life, far away from the world of magic. His life starts to unravel on the day he is taken to the Iron Trial. The Iron Trial is a mandatory test that any child who shows signs of magic has to take. At the end of the test, each Master could choose up to 5 apprentices to teach.

Artemis Fowl, Book 1, by Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl-1 (Book 1), by Eoin Colfer

Amazon US, Amazon IN, Kindle IN

This is the first book in the Artemis Fowl series. Before I do anything I would like to give you a short summary of the book so that you’ll understand what I’ll talk about later.

The main character is a twelve year old boy named Artemis who is a criminal mastermind and a genius. In the course of one of his schemes, he manages to find the People or the fairy folk. The People have been living underground for a long time hidden from the Mud Men or humans. They have survived this long thanks to Foaly, the centaur also a technological genius. Artemis manages to decipher the Book (the rulebook of the fairies) which is written in Gnommish. This is a first. He learns that fairies need to complete a Ritual so that they can restore and replenish their magic. The Ritual involves plucking an acorn from an ancient tree and while the acorn is still fresh, planting it on a full moon night. Artemis goes to all the ancient oak trees onn full moon nights in the hope of catching a fairy. After many long waits he is rewarded. He captures Captain Holly Short of the LEP (fairy police force) He holds her captive and asks for a ransom from the LEP. The LEP has no other choice but to put a time field on Artemis’s house. A time field stops time in that particular place for at least 8 hours. If Artemis did not give up Holly by the end of the eight hours the LEP would have too release a bio-bomb that kills all living creatures and leaves everything else untouched. Is Artemis as clever as he seems? Will he be able to win without getting killed?

Aru Shah and the End of Time, by Roshani Chokshi

 Aru Shah and the End of Time (A Pandava Novel Book 1) (Pandava Series), by Roshani Chokshi

This book was shown to me by my father. My sister had already read this book and didn’t have a great opinion of it. I however, decided to read it and then form an opinion.

‘Aru Shah and the End of Time’ is about a twelve-year old girl named Aru. Aru always feels left out and the odd one out at her school. Her mother is a famous archaeologist, who works at the ‘Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture’ and is always busy with work and business trips. The result of all of this was that her mother would often forget about Aru, her classes and her activities. Everyone would be dropped by their parents and have fancy cars while she would walk to school alone. Desperate to change this, Aru starts using her imagination and creates stories about the imaginary cities and places she has visited. Since, Aru practically lives in the museum she uses the artifacts and statues around her as inspiration. An elephant statue in the museum becomes a wild elephant that she tamed and rescued from India. This works and slowly but steadily Aru starts finding a place for herself in school.

One fatal day, she is visited by three of her classmates, Poppy, Arielle and Burton. This time Aru is trapped in her own lie of being on holiday in France. To make things worse, they are recording every single thing she does so that they can reveal all of her lies to the whole school. She decides to do something very dangerous and forbidden, she decides to light the cursed lamp.

Bookasura #2: Koobandhee by Arundhati Venkatesh

Bookasura #2: Koobandhee

by Arundhati Venkatesh

category: children, fiction, adventure

Age: 8-12years

Buy from: Amazon US, Amazon IN

Koobandhee talks about a boy named Bala who loves reading. Unfortunately, his books are terrorized by his book-eating sister. The summer holidays start and Bala is shipped off to Melagam with his sister to live with their grandparents. Bala feels that things can’t get any worse but they do when he meets the monster Koobandhee. She eats and barfs books. She also farts a lot. She blames Bala for her problems as he had destroyed her descendant, Bookasura. This had caused all the future generations to develop problems. Bala is very scared of her. Unfortunately, she lives right next to his grandparent’s house. One day while visiting Navneet Uncle he leaves his books in Koobandhee’s cave! How will Bala survive his summer? Most importantly how will he rescue his books before Mrs. Shashee, his librarian finds out? This book was very funny. The plot was very simple and nice. The illustrations were funny too. I decided to read it because I had read the first book in the series. Since, I liked the first book I decided to read the second book too. It was a very funny story. My favourite character was Meera, the younger sister of Bala. She was so cute. It was a nice experience reading this book.

[this is included in our January 2018 edition of eGranth, our monthly books newsletter]

  © 2017, Anika Agarwal. All rights reserved.

Cosmo and the Great Witch Escape, by Gwyneth Rees

Cosmo and the Great Witch Escape

by Gwyneth Rees

category: fantasy, Fiction, Adventure

Age: 12+years

Buy from: Amazon US, Amazon IN

My sister had borrowed this book and had said it was nice, so I decided to read it. The story was nice and interesting. It talks about Cosmo, a witch-cat (a cat that had magic sneezes) who lives with his parents and his owners, the Two-Shoes family. The Two-Shoes family were having a baby named Spike but after he comes back from getting weighed, his toenails were clipped off. This had happened in the whole ward of new born witch-babies (children of witches). This was very bad as the toenails prevented the babies from getting sick or ill. Cosmo and his friend Mia decide to investigate it. While this was happening Cleo Cattrap, the famous organizer of cat catwalks happened to pass by and decided to organize a catwalk. Most of the cats were participating in it and the fee was a flea less hairball. Ten cats and kittens were selected for the final. Cosmo and Mia are selected too. Unfortunately, the next day one of the adult cat finalists and Mia disappear. Scarlett, the elder sister of Spike also disappears. Cosmo remembers that he had seen a cottage that had belonged to two evil witches on a ride with Scarlett. That cottage now belonged to another evil witch named Selina Slaughter who was a friend of Cosmo’s previous owner, Sybil (she is now in the Bad Witches Prison). They had seen a witch with toenail clippings enter the cottage which was very fishy. They decide to investigate and discover a horrifying thing. The plot was very simple and easy to understand. My favourite character was Cosmo because he used his brain and was very helpful. There are two other books in this series and I can’t wait to read them.

[this is included in our January 2018 edition of eGranth, our monthly books newsletter]

© 2018, Anika Agarwal. All rights reserved.