Just Words on a Page

I read Magonia in one day… and that is not because I couldn’t put it down. It was because I wanted to put it down but I also wanted to see how it ended so I skimmed a few pages here and there to get to the ending faster. I just could not get into this book- I thought the main character was whiny, self-entitled, and unrelatable. Maybe because I’m not a teenager anymore or maybe because I’m not typically into fantasy but either way- I just didn’t like this book.

The premise sounded really interesting (though who decided to compare it to The Fault in Our Stars needs to be fired):

Maria Dahvana Headley's soaring YA debut is a fiercely intelligent, multilayered fantasy where Neil Gaiman's Stardust meets John Green's The Fault in Our Stars in a story about a girl caught between two worlds . . . two races . . . and two destinies.

Aza Ray Boyle is drowning in thin air. Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn't think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who's always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia.

Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—but as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war between Magonia and Earth is coming. In Aza's hands lies fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

But the execution of the story/plot was done horribly. Like I said, the main character was relatable and whiny which made the book hard to get through. The fact that she felt the need to tell the reader that she was dying or was supposed to die soon on every other page got so frustrating that I started to wish she would die just to get some relief. I did tear up when she died but not because SHE died but because of the way the author portrayed her family during the process. Having lost someone close to me, I felt every emotion Aza’s parents were feeling and it made it that much more real. Though when Aza woke up alive on a floating ship in the sky, I thought she would’ve matured or at least death would’ve made her less whiny- but nope. All she wanted to do was “go back home, go back to her boyfriend, see her family.” I get it- you got ripped away from everything you ever knew but you need to learn to ADAPT- YOU’RE ON A FLYING SHIP IN THE SKY! THERE ARE WHALES MADE OF CLOUDS FOLLOWING YOU AROUND! THIS SHOULD BE AWESOME but instead Aza makes it sound like it is the worst thing that could ever happen to her ever.

Overall: 2/5

SRP Goal: 7/20