You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Scan barcode
A review by aprildiamond
Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger
3.0
I had heard a lot of good things about this book, or at least this series, but I felt like it didn't quite live up to the hype.
The problems I had with this book were mostly in the earlier half or so. Right away, we are presented with the character of Sophie, who is different than all the other kids. We then find out that she is different from humans but that there are others like her (elves). Okay, great, fine. But then, we learn that Sophie is the most ultra special person ever and there is nobody like her and she has all of these abilities that are very rare and can do things that adult elves can't do etc etc etc. Main characters like these kind of take me out of the story, because as hard as the author tries to convince us that she DOES have flaws (bad at PE, lack of confidence), it falls flat and Sophie as a character just seemed way too perfect. It doesn't help that apparently a bunch of guys like her (?) but more on that later. And I understand that there was a reason why she had all these talents, but for a while it felt like every page was just "omg Sophie you can do this too? NOBODY can do that!" which gets pretty old quick.
The story also went WAY too fast at the beginning, so much so that I wasn't able to suspend disbelief quickly enough. This sounds strange, but the way everything was written in the first few chapters was reminiscent of a third grader writing a story. "This is Sophie who is different and special and then one day a boy finds her and shows her a magical world where elves live and then she finds out she is an elf and she leaves the human world to live in the magical world." Kind of like that. I don't know how to place it, but it didn't flow correctly. If the beginning had been stretched out and developed more I think it would have been beneficial to the book.
While a bit off-putting, the beginning and the cliche protagonist weren't enough to knock this down 2 stars. No, there were more serious problems in the assumptions made by this book and how infuriating some of the characters became.
Let's start off with this. STOP PUTTING GIRL HATE IN MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS. Or books, period. It is extremely annoying. The target audience of these books is (usually) girls of impressionable ages where everything they read is going to have an impact on them. I know that the things I read back then definitely changed who I am now. And this book decided that girls were going to hate each other for the sole reason of getting a boy's attention. 1, if characters dislike other characters, there should be a legitimate reason why this happens. Dex gets an actual reason to hate Fitz and Biana. It makes sense. Why not do this for everyone? And 2, girls are not only interested in boys, however foreign this idea may seem. I mean, things really got ridiculous when one of the GIRL characters said something like "I don't usually hang out with girls, they're annoying." ??? SIS YOU ARE A GIRL. Why do we keep teaching girls internalized misogyny?? Why? And then later, Sophie tries to give Fitz a gift, sees a CROWD of girls getting angry at her for it (I can't begin to explain how unrealistic this is) and then thinks to herself "ugh, girls". AGAIN, she IS a girl. This was so immensely frustrating.
Somewhat related but also a separate problem was how the idea of crushes was handled.
1) A horde of girls liked any guy who was described as good-looking (i.e. Fitz)
Firstly, in the earliest chapters of the book it was mentioned that all elves were good looking, so this shouldn't be a thing, but whatever. It also just doesn't make sense. This happens all the time in fiction but it's completely garbage. While most people can RECOGNIZE if someone is attractive, it doesn't mean that they all have feelings for that person. This is evidently a difficult concept, and it makes reading these parts tedious.
2) A bunch of guys like Sophie
I'm not buying this one. It ties into the "super special" main character thing from earlier. The fact is, Sophie did not interact with characters enough to justify that many people liking her. She barely talked! The only one I can understand is Dex, because they were friends and she actually talked to him a lot. But anyone else? No way. Again, it ruins any semblance of Sophie being a normal, relatable character if she has 3 or 4 guys trying to get with her for seemingly no reason.
3) "Boy-crazy" heroine
Although shown to dig on other female characters for this same reason, Sophie is written to be thinking WAY too much about guys for a normal 12 year old. When she first meets Fitz, it would have been understandable to have her recognize that he was good-looking, but the fact that she likes him after that is pushing it. And then it keeps getting brought up at the weirdest times, making the reader suffer through severe secondhand embarrassment/awkwardness.
Most of the stuff that I've outlined disappeared or was severely toned down after about the halfway point, allowing me to enjoy the rest of the book normally. I thought the plot was pretty interesting, and some of the relationships between characters were written really well. Maybe it was just the romantic ones that the author was having trouble with. Although I was kind of sick of Sophie ending up in the infirmary every two seconds lmao.
So I think I'm going to keep reading the series to see how it goes. Hopefully the issues I had with this book don't show up again because they take away from what I think could have been a really strong story.
The problems I had with this book were mostly in the earlier half or so. Right away, we are presented with the character of Sophie, who is different than all the other kids. We then find out that she is different from humans but that there are others like her (elves). Okay, great, fine. But then, we learn that Sophie is the most ultra special person ever and there is nobody like her and she has all of these abilities that are very rare and can do things that adult elves can't do etc etc etc. Main characters like these kind of take me out of the story, because as hard as the author tries to convince us that she DOES have flaws (bad at PE, lack of confidence), it falls flat and Sophie as a character just seemed way too perfect. It doesn't help that apparently a bunch of guys like her (?) but more on that later. And I understand that there was a reason why she had all these talents, but for a while it felt like every page was just "omg Sophie you can do this too? NOBODY can do that!" which gets pretty old quick.
The story also went WAY too fast at the beginning, so much so that I wasn't able to suspend disbelief quickly enough. This sounds strange, but the way everything was written in the first few chapters was reminiscent of a third grader writing a story. "This is Sophie who is different and special and then one day a boy finds her and shows her a magical world where elves live and then she finds out she is an elf and she leaves the human world to live in the magical world." Kind of like that. I don't know how to place it, but it didn't flow correctly. If the beginning had been stretched out and developed more I think it would have been beneficial to the book.
While a bit off-putting, the beginning and the cliche protagonist weren't enough to knock this down 2 stars. No, there were more serious problems in the assumptions made by this book and how infuriating some of the characters became.
Let's start off with this. STOP PUTTING GIRL HATE IN MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS. Or books, period. It is extremely annoying. The target audience of these books is (usually) girls of impressionable ages where everything they read is going to have an impact on them. I know that the things I read back then definitely changed who I am now. And this book decided that girls were going to hate each other for the sole reason of getting a boy's attention. 1, if characters dislike other characters, there should be a legitimate reason why this happens. Dex gets an actual reason to hate Fitz and Biana. It makes sense. Why not do this for everyone? And 2, girls are not only interested in boys, however foreign this idea may seem. I mean, things really got ridiculous when one of the GIRL characters said something like "I don't usually hang out with girls, they're annoying." ??? SIS YOU ARE A GIRL. Why do we keep teaching girls internalized misogyny?? Why? And then later, Sophie tries to give Fitz a gift, sees a CROWD of girls getting angry at her for it (I can't begin to explain how unrealistic this is) and then thinks to herself "ugh, girls". AGAIN, she IS a girl. This was so immensely frustrating.
Somewhat related but also a separate problem was how the idea of crushes was handled.
1) A horde of girls liked any guy who was described as good-looking (i.e. Fitz)
Firstly, in the earliest chapters of the book it was mentioned that all elves were good looking, so this shouldn't be a thing, but whatever. It also just doesn't make sense. This happens all the time in fiction but it's completely garbage. While most people can RECOGNIZE if someone is attractive, it doesn't mean that they all have feelings for that person. This is evidently a difficult concept, and it makes reading these parts tedious.
2) A bunch of guys like Sophie
I'm not buying this one. It ties into the "super special" main character thing from earlier. The fact is, Sophie did not interact with characters enough to justify that many people liking her. She barely talked! The only one I can understand is Dex, because they were friends and she actually talked to him a lot. But anyone else? No way. Again, it ruins any semblance of Sophie being a normal, relatable character if she has 3 or 4 guys trying to get with her for seemingly no reason.
3) "Boy-crazy" heroine
Although shown to dig on other female characters for this same reason, Sophie is written to be thinking WAY too much about guys for a normal 12 year old. When she first meets Fitz, it would have been understandable to have her recognize that he was good-looking, but the fact that she likes him after that is pushing it. And then it keeps getting brought up at the weirdest times, making the reader suffer through severe secondhand embarrassment/awkwardness.
Most of the stuff that I've outlined disappeared or was severely toned down after about the halfway point, allowing me to enjoy the rest of the book normally. I thought the plot was pretty interesting, and some of the relationships between characters were written really well. Maybe it was just the romantic ones that the author was having trouble with. Although I was kind of sick of Sophie ending up in the infirmary every two seconds lmao.
So I think I'm going to keep reading the series to see how it goes. Hopefully the issues I had with this book don't show up again because they take away from what I think could have been a really strong story.