I'm done being in between books, so, evidently, I've just started another. I'm only a few pages in, but that's still enough to determine whether or not this is going to be worth the read.
We're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but we all do it anyway. This book is called The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud. It's the first book in The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Its got a shiny cover with a smirking goblin-like creature holding a gold amulet, in case you were wondering. Obviously, it's a fantasy. I could tell from first glance it was going to be high fantasy, but had no idea about the plot.
It's about an eleven year old magician's apprentice who was humiliated by this awesome magician who's apparently ruthless and ambitious. The boy teaches himself spells way beyond his years because he seeks revenge. (Already feeling inclined to find out what this guy did to this poor kid.) So the eleven year old, Nathaniel, summons Bartimaeus, a five thousand year old djinni, to assist him.
I didn't really know what to expect. After reading the first few pages, I found out pretty quickly that the book takes a action-now-explain-magical-stuff-and-reasons-behind-everything-that-is-happening-that-would-be-really-helpful-to-know-later kind of approach. I couldn't decided whether to give up and call it a night after I went through pages having no idea what was going on or continue to read to find out why it feels like the author skipped the exposition and went to the beginning of climbing action immediately then back to exposition(read it and you'll know what I mean).
Overall, It seems a little intimidating at first; you're placed in a high-action situation with magic spells and little explanation as to what's going on. However, Once you read further, you start to see how the pieces fit together and everything becomes slightly less confusing. So I've decided to let curiosity get the best of me and continue to read the book. Hopefully things will be explained in the next chapter.
No comments:
Post a Comment