This book is a masterpiece! I was blown away by an author who can make spiritual truths relevant to younger people by making them small pieces of an adventurous fantasy tale. OK, maybe you'll say C.S. Lewis already did this, or Phillip Pullman (tho I don't really remember his themes). Yes, they are also good. Maybe I was just ready for a new version, one that also included a hero that learns to think selflessly, a calamity where it is necessary to put the greater good ahead of one's own needs. A story that isn't subliminally christian or dependent on a know-it-all savior.
DiMartino introduces us to Sacred Geometry, the esoteric meanings behind different shapes. He doesn't harangue us with this, but gives just enough to whet our appetite and, perhaps, make us wonder about reality beyond what we see with our eyes. He merges Jewish descriptions of golems with Buddhist mention of tulpas. He draws a world ruled by a despot, where people live in fear and those that are creative have their inspiration stolen from them and become Lost Souls.
Part of my enthusiasm for the book may be because my home-schooled grandkids have a strong interest in art and (the youngest) in fighting, and their parents have a strong social justice take on life.
Before I run out of time to write, let me jot down the quotes that show the most important truths. Note: quotes from an ARC copy, may not be them same as published. I do intend to buy a final copy to keep.
"Our bodies and minds were opposites...Our souls unified them and made us human....What if our souls went back to the Wellspring?" (about p.266)
"We're all built from the same blueprint, he realized. W're all connected...A feeling of peace overcame Giacomo as he realized the whole universe was contained within every single thing, and all those things were woven into the fabric of the universe. I'm not separate from the others after all." (about p.310-11) ( )

I enjoyed this book and so did my daughter. There were a few spots where she was nervous for the characters, but nothing too outrageous. The characters were likable and the story moved along at a good pace. We will definitely continue reading this series. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing us to read this in exchange for our honest review. ( )

Reseña en español: http://boisde-merveilles.blogspot.com/2018/06/rebel-genius-genius-1-michael-dant...

I really, really expected to love this book, and I tried to love it, but it just didn’t work for me, or it wasn’t what I was expecting.

The book premise is interesting and the setting is pretty unique. I think the strongest point of the whole book was the magic system; it was something I would never imagine, magic through geometrical shapes. I liked the general idea behind the book, but the execution was a bit poor in some aspects.

The beginning of the book is extremely slow and a big info dump through a mentor explaining Giacomo how the sacred geometry works. I was really bored and did not care about the characters at all until around page 150, where the real story and adventure begin.

The biggest weakness of the book was its characters. The main reason I love Avatar is for its well developed and fleshed out characters, but in this book the characters are so flat and boring it was hard to identify who was who sometimes. I didn’t like Giacomo as a protagonist, nor any of the “good guys,” for some reason I felt the most interesting characters where the bad guys.

Giacomo is a case of a “chosen one,” a special and unique boy, the only one who can save the world for some reason, even if he just started his training. Still, there was a big plot twist about him at the end that I definitely wasn’t expecting it.

The book is enjoyable but slow and too many explanations of the magic system and the world are overwhelming. The book has illustrations that really help the reader to understand the explanations.

I recommend this if you are looking for a book with an original and creative magic system, and I would say this is one of those middle grade books that are not for everyone but for the target audience.

( )

Giacomo is a 12-year-old orphan on the run from the orphanage and hiding out in the sewers when he is not hunting for food. He lives in a world where creative people once had companion birds known as geniuses. But the woman who rules the country has decided that she must be the only one to have a genius and has outlawed all others, taking them away from people and leaving them as ‘lost souls’, pale and grey without wit or direction, often dangerous. Giacomo’s parents are such ‘lost souls’. Giacomo has always wished he had a genius but knows he’s too old now to have one. But then, miraculously, after an attack by a Lost Soul, a genius comes to him. Unfortunately as much as he has wished for one, he realizes that actually having one puts both him and his new genius in danger. He retreats to the sewers where he is found by a group of children also with geniuses who take him to a safe place where they are trained to apply their creative skills.

It soon becomes apparent that Giacomo has the ability to tap directly into the Wellspring, the reservoir from which all creativity comes. Not only that but he ‘sees’ the hiding place of the compass, one of three sacred tools which have been hidden away so long their existence is thought by most people to be mythical. But as they make plans to recover the compass, they learn that they are not the only ones hunting for it and that this other seeker will stop at nothing to be the one to get it.

Rebel Genius is the first in the middle grade Geniuses series by Michael Dante DiMartino co-creator of the Nickelodean series Avatar: The Last Airbender. This is, for the most part, a fun, action-packed story. It did, however, lose some of its fast pacing near the middle as the children’s teacher explains the fundamentals of art – as interesting as this was, it slowed the story down considerably and it took a while for it to regain its momentum. When it did, however, it did it with a bang and, for most of the rest of the book, it never lets up.

The idea of the genius or sprit animal is not a new one and I couldn’t help but compare this to Pullman’s Golden Compass but, in fairness, the idea precedes both authors by millennia and DiMartino does use it to good purpose here. It should also be noted that this story takes some very dark turns and many of the characters don’t survive which might make this story a bad choice for a very young reader. It is also fairly long and ends on a cliffhanger.

The story is told in the third person and in fairly short simple sentences which may help it appeal to a younger audience but not as much to older kids or adults. Still the world-building is impressive, the children are likable with flaws that make them easy to relate to and the accompanying illustrations are very well done and add nicely to the story. Overall, I enjoyed Rebel Genius quite a bit once I got into the story and look forward to the sequel.

Thanks to Netgalley and Roaring Book Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review ( )