Samuel J Vega

I received this book in a give away.

After the success of Harry Potter, many aspiring young adult writers created their own weirdo boarding schools with oddball classes and teachers, and of course, a wise and powerful principal like figure, who is secretly engaged in a battle with some kind of dark forces. As a school librarian I have read many of them, and my interest in the subject has waned over time, so I maybe a little biased. However, despite being entertaining, fast read this book has many other issues.

Let's start with with the protagonist Kyle Demore. In the realm of our usual daily life Kyle is a slightly withdrawn, somewhat anxious orphan boy, who is easily intimidated. As soon as he lands in "the other realm" he suddenly loves to fight, stands up for himself and makes lots of friends. It is unclear how he psychologically achieves that huge change within such a short time. Undoubtedly every adolescent would love to have something like that happening to them, but here it all seems to easy. Kyle excels in almost everything from the beginning of his stay in Endera. It is all a little bit too good to be true.

My main objection to the book is its portrayal of fighting as fun, useful and desirable. What do teenagers learn from reading about a school, where you can challenge a teacher to a duel any time you want, where fighting is taught in every class, and sparring with other students is encouraged. It sounds like the high school Batman, Spiderman, Superman and Wonder Woman went to. Do we want our children to think that you can always get your way by by resorting to some form of violence and trickery? Initially nothing is mentioned about why fighting is so important; we only find that out much later in the story.
Along with the fighting comes immediate expulsion of some mean bullies after they are found out. In real life the victim often has to put up with their tormentors getting punished, but remaining in the same school or even class. Again this is wishful thinking.
Also not quite realistic is that most battle wounds are healed immediately. In other words there are no physical consequences for getting into a tussle. There is no better way to create violent people than that.

I had a hard to imagining Endera, the Other Realm. Was it a planet, a country, an island? The description is vague. The people, landscapes and architecture looked a lot like those in our world. The word Endera is close to "endear", which made it sound like a New Age commune full of peaceful hippies, while it anything but that. All I could discern was the different magical abilities of the people and the constant focus on doing battle.

Last but not least, it is all too predictable "good wins over evil". I would like to see the reaction of some adolescents.… (meer)