The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens

Description:


John Stephens' aptly-titled new fantasy trilogy begins auspiciously with a nimble, fast-paced tale of three siblings. Kate, Michael, and Emma have suffered through ten years of odious orphanage "care"; now they have slipped into the care of the eccentric, disturbingly mysterious Dr. Pym. While exploring their new home, the children discover a magical green book. With that discovery, a decade of tedium dissolves into cascades of dangerous time travel adventures and struggles with a beautiful witch and decidedly less attractive zombielike Screechers. High early reader marks for strong characterization and battle scenes.


Epic Wins:

• I don’t even know where to start, I loved it SO much.
• Kate- Strong is the word that comes to mind. She is also a little sad. Really she was one of those characters that starts out careful and cautious and ends up being a risk-taking, put-it-all-on-the-line-because-you-have-to character. To lessen the burdens of others, she keeps secrets. She doesn’t want others to be bogged down by these things so she keeps them.
• Michel- He might as well join the dwarfs for how much he knows about them. It’s like in Annie the musical, she hold on to her locket because it is proof that she has parents.  Pretty much nerdy but has good intentions.
• Emma- A little firecracker. She is easily riled and always has her arms, legs, and really whatever she can hit you with ready to strike.  She is a ball of spazzy passion.  She loves her siblings with that same passion. Oh and I might add she is slightly snarky.
• The world created is masterful and quite brilliant.
• Mix magic, time travel, mythical creatures, undead, warriors, destiny and a powerful book. Yeah, one order of defined awesome-sauce coming right up.
• All the good people who help the three characters defeat the evil that lurks.
• Dull moment? Nope. No even one. The whole thing was action-packed down to the last second er page.
• In the end, there was hope.

Epic Fails:

• The whole evil side. From HER to the undead warriors, I hated them all. Well DUR that’s kind of the point *smacks self over the head*

Overall:

I loved every inch of this book and its masterful world. A book that bursts at the seams and was a total bomb to my mind. 

just sayin,
-Kare