Book Review: THE POTION DIARIES

Title: The Potion Diaries
Author: Amy Alward
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Pages:  384

The Potion Diaries is a story of love, friendship, forgiveness, deception and betrayal that should appeal to people of all ages.

The book is written in two viewpoints: the third-person past tense viewpoint of Princess Evelyn, the only daughter of the King and Queen of Nova, and the first-person present tense viewpoint of Samantha Kemi, an ordinary girl with no magic who hails from a family of alchemists.

The Kemis were at one time the alchemists to the royal family, and one of the most prominent apothecaries in Kingstown, but have now fallen on hard times as most people prefer to buy remedial potions from the synthetic potion manufacturers rather than from the alchemists.

On her 18^th birthday, Princess Evelyn mistakenly drinks a love potion that she had made for Zain Aster, the son of Zoro Aster and heir to ZolAster, the wealthiest synthetic potion manufacturers in the kingdom who now enjoy the favour of the royal family.

While drinking from the goblet, Evelyn sees her own reflection and falls head over heels in love with herself. The entranced-with-herself princess becomes a danger to herself and to the kingdom, and the King calls for a Wilde Hunt, a competition inviting the alchemists of the kingdom to find a cure for the princess’ condition. Samantha and her grandfather, Ostanes Kemi, are also summoned to participate in the Hunt.

When Ostanes refuses to participate against the Asters, Samantha yearns to follow her dreams and come into her own as an alchemist. She signs up and finds herself pitted against the Asters, including Zain, on whom she has a crush, and Emilia, the King’s sister who was exiled because she dabbled in the dark arts.

Against the wishes of her granddad, Samantha and Kirsty Donovan, the Kemi family’s Finder, enter into the Hunt, only to get thrown out when their search for merpearl, the only ingredient that the princess has written down, is thwarted by Zol and his cronies. Apologetic about his father’s behaviour, Zain offers to help Samantha to classify ingredients in her shop.

While cleaning the shop, Samatha learns that her grandfather hid the merpearl they had to prevent her from participating in the Hunt. Using a truth serum to ferret out his confession, she and Kirsty take off with the merpearl to Bharat, where all the Participants have gone in search of the remaining ingredients.

Initially, they team up with the Patel siblings, Samantha’s best friend Anita, and her brother Arjun, but when they are attacked by Emilia, Kirsty decides that it is safer to split from them and work separately.

Later, the King’s evil sister vandalises the Kemi family library in search of the recipe for the love potion.

Will Samantha be able to fight the dangers posed by Emilia and Zol? Will she ever regain Anita’s friendship again?

I found the premise to be refreshingly original.

The adventure is well written and I can see youngsters enjoying the ride.

Author Amy creates a wonderful fantasy world, where magic is as real as the commercialism that gets in its way. There is something fairy-tale-like about the setting. From Kingstown which was built on the remains of an extinct volcano.

This is a world of mythic creatures like mermaids and sentient plants like the eluvium ivy.

The language is beautiful. In one instance, Amy describes the forest as a sacred place – a natural cathedral, a living library, an organic lab.

The fact that screens at bus stops and on screens get transformed into customized video message boxes for individuals reminded me of Back to the Future 2. I also found the concept of Transport, a strange form of Teleporting involving touching through screens and maintaining eye contact, interesting.

I liked the references to other parts of the world. Often novels tend to be America-centric even when set on another planet. Here there are references to Bharat and Zambi, the India and Zambia of this world.

At first, I thought that Bharat was just a token reference. But the land known by India’s ancient name is without doubt, the India that I know of, albeit set on a planet where magic reigns supreme. The land of the Ayurveda, which is full of concoctions and mixtures and pastes, translating into the Potions of this world. References to Indian culture were clearly visible in Bharat.

While on the subject, I must mention that Hallah is a diminution of the name, Himalayas. And Mount Oberon is Mount Everest, while the abominable Yeti is known here as just the abominable.

I also appreciated the Indian characters, the Patel family. Daughter Anita is Samantha’s best friend, and her brother, Arjun, and her parents are good people, and Samantha is attached to all of them. When they were first mentioned, I hoped they were not just token characters, and it was satisfying to see that they were not.

I liked Samantha. She is a list person, and makes up lists for almost everything. List of things to ask Kirsty; list of things to repair etc.

I found Samantha to be a lot like me. Apart from her tendency to make lists for everything, she says of the Hunt, They’re not for people who would rather live their adventures through characters in books. I like staying home, thank-you-very-much, where I know I can always find a plug point for my laptop, I’m never ten steps from a kettle to boil for tea, and I can go to sleep wrapped up in the comfort of my own duvet.

Yet she gives in to her dream and agrees to participate in the Hunt, with Kirsty as her Finder, against the wishes of her grandfather.

It was good to see the team work and the mental affinity between Samantha and Kirsty.

The title, The Potion Diaries, refers to the diaries maintained by alchemists, in which they note down their recipes, notes and dreams.

A sweet adventure that youngsters particularly will enjoy.

Book Review: DEAD TO YOU

Title: Dead to You
Author: Lisa McMann
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 256
GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐

Dead to You is the first person present tense point of view of Ethan De Wilde who is meeting his family, father, mother, brother Blake and sister Gracie, after 9 years. Abducted at age 7, he is being restored to his family at age 16.

From the very beginning, Blake looks upon Ethan with suspicion when the latter, it seems, has no memories of his first seven years at home. Ethan cannot seem to remember anything of note. All his memories of the first seven years are linked with the family website created after he was abducted.

Ethan’s innermost thoughts are hidden from us, and we know as little about his life with Ellen as do his parents and siblings. The only thing we can guess is that it must have been traumatic enough for him to break out in a paroxysm of hysteria and panic.

Cami, Ethan’s childhood friend, is the only one who seeks to understand him. She helps him fill in the gaps of what he has missed since he was taken as well as some of the memories that she shared with him. Gradually, Cami and Ethan get into a relationship.

Ethan calls Gracie the replacement child, somebody who has usurped his place in the family. Somebody who was born to replace him.

Meanwhile, Blake feels himself lost in all the fuss being made over the Lost Boy and the Replacement Child. He resents Ethan for the trouble and the heartache he has caused the family, especially given the fact that at age 7, Ethan willingly walked to the car and got into it, when she should have known better not to talk to strangers.

Strangely Ethan is conflicted in his relationship with his birth mother, remembering nothing and feeling a strange connection with Ellen, the woman who took him away and later abandoned him at a group home. When he speaks of her, though, he refers to her as Eleanor, unwilling to speak her true name, and lead the police to her.

The characters of the parents and Blake and Gracie are thoroughly believable. The only person who seems at odds is Ethan himself.

The short chapters drive us forward faster.

I was disappointed in the ending. Not only was it something I expected, even while I hoped the author would come up with something smarter, but there was no particular building of atmosphere on our way to that conclusion.

Book Review: INEXCUSABLE

Title: Inexcusable
Author: Chris Lynch
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Pages: 192
GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐

This is possibly the first time we read of the accusation of rape from the point of view of the accused.

Keir Sarafian, a young man in high school, is accused of rape by Gigi Boudakian, the girl he loves. The story is written in the first person present tense point of view of Keir Sarafian.

Keir believes himself to be good, the kind of guy who always respects a woman and her views, the kind who knows that ‘No’ means ‘No,’ the kind who was raised right. It is unthinkable that Keir could ever be accused of rape, that too by Gigi.

Gigi has a steady boyfriend, Carl, but because Carl is an air force man, stationed far away, he allows Keir to take Gigi to the prom as Keir is an old friend of both.

Then on their Graduation Day, Keir not only gets drunk, he also imbibes some narcotic substances at the home of Quarterback Ken. Later he and Gigi drive to Norfolk University where Keir has been accepted. Older sisters Mary and Fran are studying there, and Keir, who is hurt over the fact that they did not bother to come to his graduation, is determined to rub it in.

It is here that Gigi accuses Keir of doing the inexcusable, an accusation that he vehemently denies. 

Do we believe him? Could Keir be capable of rape?

We don't know until much later.

Keir tries hard to get us on his side, as he explains his family background, what a great guy his dad, Ray Sarafian, is, and how it is unthinkable that he who has been raised by Ray Sarafian could ever do anything so inexcusable.

You can tell that Dad Ray is important to him. When his older sisters go to college, father and son are brothers, roommates, bastards and buddies.  And so it proves beyond doubt that Keir is a loyal son, brother and friend, the kind who always obeys the rules and follows the plan. Or so Keir is convinced.

But the truth is that Keir’s past has not been as clean as he reports it to be. Some months ago, he achieved notoriety for having unintentionally crippled a guy while playing football. It was a crisis that saw him blacklisted by the community but his father stood by him. Eventually the crisis passed, and Keir is accepted to Norfolk University, where his older sisters are already studying. It is then that he feels accepted again.

The story is not a linear narrative. The anecdotes, the tiny stories that are the backbone of our lives, slip through, making it a personal account of Keir as he recounts the story of his life, how he is a good guy who would never hurt those he loved. 

This refrain is repeated throughout the novel until you’re fed up of hearing it and want to tell him to shut up. 

I hate it when people I love condemn me.

I hate it when people I love scream at me.

I hate it when people I love are silent to me. 

Closer to the fateful moment, we get a slight variation to the refrain, I hate it when people I love let me down, as if it were others who deceived him.

At school, he acquires the nickname, Killer, which erected a rugged new structure on the formerly vacant lot of my persona. He revels in the nickname.

Keir is an unreliable narrator because he holds the truth from us and he lies to us. The author succeeds in making us feel a sense of revulsion towards this thoroughly amoral character who doesn’t seem to see himself as a wrongdoer at all. He gives us the examples of the incident on the football ground and the trashing of the soccer teams breakup party but in both cases, he sees himself as no great wrongdoer.

Sometimes he unwittingly gives away the truth, when he says, My will wasn’t good for anything. He admits that he can’t function under the influence; that My decisions, my memory, my brain control, deserted me at the hour of need.

His observations are good, they have a touch of wit about them, but the honesty in them becomes suspect when he relates things about himself.

Keir recalls his past mistakes and thinks It was never an issue of intent, but of intensity. As long as he stops before things go too far, it will be okay.

The narrative shifts back and forth between everything that happened before and all that happened after the inexcusable thing, but we aren’t told much about the inexcusable thing, until much later.

As a woman, I was left seething with rage. This is the first time I have wanted to enter the pages of a book just to sock a character.

The message which author Lynch delivered through this story was stark.

The manner in which he slowly revealed the truth was commendable.

Even if the character was not.

Book Review: CHOKER

Title: Choker
Author: Elizabeth Woods
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Pages: 240

We hear Zoe’s voice before we even see Cara and yet it is unmistakably Cara’s voice that stays with us throughout this story, a fact that is crucial in the development of the story.

Zoe and Cara are childhood friends. It is a friendship that brings them both comfort and joy. Zoe is suffering on account of her stepfather, who is a paedophile, and Cara’s parents, busy lawyers, have absolutely no time for her.

However, Cara’s parents disapprove of Zoe, and they move away from Cara’s childhood home. Young Cara suspects that the move is designed to separate her from her best friend.

At her new school, Cara finds herself alone. She is bullied and belitted by mean girls, Alexis Henning and her best friend, Sydney Powers, and ignored by the others, even those on the track team with her.

When she has an unpleasant and painful choking episode while eating a carrot in the school cafeteria, it is Ethan Gray, Alexis’ on-off boyfriend who saves her life. Unfortunately, the incident earns her the moniker, Choker.

When Zoe runs away from home and shows up at Cara’s place, it seems like an answer to a prayer. Zoe moves into the guest bedroom at Cara’s house, and Cara promises to hide her from her parents.

Before long, Cara is feeling better than she has felt in years. Her confidence is back and she is performing really well on the track.

Her track team mates begin to befriend and most importantly, Ethan begins to show an interest in her. Could life get any better?

Unfortunately for Cara, Zoe begins to get more demanding, pushy and manipulative. Something in the friendship has gone sour, as Zoe resents Cara for having other friends. 

On the one hand, Cara cannot understand the change that seems to have come over Zoe, on the other, she feels guilty for enjoying her new friendships while Zoe is stuck home alone, forced to hide from everyone else for fear of her stepfather, unable to live life the way Cara seems to be doing.

There is a certain intrigue and mystery that surrounds Zoe, and we realize that she is hiding something from Cara, who shows herself to be too naïve and seems like putty in Zoe’s hands.

Before long, strange things start happening. First Sydney is found floating face down in her own swimming pool, and then Alexis goes missing.

The police suspect Ethan of having something to do with Alexis’ disappearance. And all the while, Cara wonders if Zoe has anything to do with the death of Sydney and the disappearance of Alexis. Will the police ever catch the real culprit or is Cara doomed to lose Ethan?

The story is written in the third person point of view of Cara, and we really identify with the girl, pitying her and wanting to comfort her through all the bullying that she is subjected to. 

Yet all along, we wonder why Cara won’t stand up for herself, first against the bullying of the mean girls, and then against the bullying of Zoe.

The story really reeled me in. The ending didn’t blow me away because I had expecting something like this, but the manner in which the author built her story was really good. It is only at the close of the book that you notice the red flags that have been planted all over the story. 

The author, at least, has not deceived us. 

Of course, this is meant for a Young Adult audience, one that may not have read so many thrillers and may not be acquainted with the techniques of the genre.

The beauty of the writing is the ease and felicity with which a reliable narrator, somebody we have liked and sympathized with, and watched indulgently while that person falls in love, is transformed into an unreliable narrator. The shift, much as I expected it, took me by surprise.

I’m sure that the author’s younger readers must be blown away and must now be ready to read something even more deceptive and thrilling.

I, for one, would definitely like to read more from this author.