Review: Akarnae by Lynette Noni

A little bit Harry Potter, a little bit Narnia, Akarnae is an intriguing YA fantasy debut from Australian author Lynette Noni. Alex is dreading her first day at a dreary boarding school full of mean girls, but life takes a very unexpected, and perhaps welcome, twist, when she opens a door and finds herself within another realm. Medora is a world that is just like earth, but also completely different. Here, people have different skills and some have special gifts. And Alex, it seems is one of the gifted. Fortunately, Akarnae Academy, a school for the gifted is willing to take her on full scholarship. And the adventures--new friendships, and a very scary enemy are just the beginning.

I picked this one up for one reason--I'd never heard of it or it's author. The fact that it was published by a smaller publisher was also another plus. I like giving review space on my blog to up and coming authors, particularly up and coming Australian authors. Anyway, a short search on google very quickly informed me that there was nothing up and coming about this book or its author. It turns out that in many circles, The Medoran Chronicles are already a huge, big deal and Akarnae is already on its third print run. (That will bloody well teach me to keep up with what is going on with Australian speculative fiction authors!)

Anyway, I read Akarnae and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Without giving too much away, I think that anyone who loves books and libraries will probably love Akarnae. Alex herself is a great heroine--smart, resourceful and able to survive against the odds. Parts of the book felt a little bit too similar to things that I'd read before, but I suppose that when you're a women in her thirties who persists in reading YA, you cop that. Anyway, there was more than enough in this one to hold my interest. I liked most of the supporting characters, though, surprisingly, my favourite was probably the sullen DC--I thoroughly enjoyed some of her and Alex's bickering. (Alex's comebacks are quite amusing.)

Overall, an enjoyable read. Recommended. 

This book was read as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2018

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more