Book Review: The Warlock by Michael Scott

The Warlock by Michael Scott

(The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

Book #5

Genre:

Young Adult

 Fantasy

Published:

Published May 24th 2011 by Delacorte Press

Source:

borrowed from library

Pages:

380

My Rating:

☆☆☆

SYNOPSIS:

In the fifth installment of this bestselling series, the twins of prophesy have been divided, and the end is finally beginning.
With Scatty, Joan of Arc, Saint Germain, Palamedes, and Shakespeare all in Danu Talis, Sophie is on her own with the ever-weakening Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel. She must depend on Niten to help her find an immortal to teach her Earth Magic. The surprise is that she will find her teacher in the most ordinary of places.

MY THOUGHTS:

Twin siblings, Sophie and Josh, lived pretty normal lives with archeologist parents and an aunt that lived in San Francisco where they were staying the summer when their lives turned upside down. While working in a book store, Josh meets the infamous Nicholas Flamel while he is attacked. After that, the twins end up on the run from monsters, gods, and immortals. And that was pretty much describing a premise of the first book. This entire series is a fast-paced rollercoaster of shadowrealms, ley gates, aura magic, and countless monsters and characters from history.

I read the first four books in this series over three years ago so it was no wonder that I was lost and confused when I started The Warlock. There was no subtle weaving of past events into the first few chapters to help anyone remember where the last book left off. Considering that there had to of been some considerable amount of time between the publishing of the fourth and fifth book, I don't think that it was wise to just leave off where the previous book ended and continue without a single clue of what went on in the last one.

This series is the close to being the king of fast-paced books, in my opinion. So much happens in each book and each book encompasses about a day's  amount of time. So far, it seems like this entire series takes place within a week. I can imagine that is a lot to take in for two normal teenagers. This series is so fast-paced that I practically imagine the characters running throughout the whole story. Anyway, from what I can remember of previous books from the tiniest of clues in this book, the story continues along with just as much adventure, chaos, and treachery.

One of my biggest pet peeves about these books is the overwhelming amount of characters. There are so many characters that each chapter covers groups of 3-5 (give or take) people and there are usually about 5 or more chapters of different sets of people before getting back to the original characters. I remember enjoying the introduction of multiple characters whose names are recognizable and had some bearing in historic events or mythology in the first few books but this time around I was just irritated by the huge cast of characters.

But don't take this little rant as a bad thing. I read the first four books sometime after reading The Percy Jackson series and thought it was the perfect series for anyone wanting to continue learning a wider array of mythology and lore. Plus, the thought of famous people in history (like Joan of Arc, Dr. John Dee, Virginia Dare, and Billy the Kid) as immortals was quite fun and sparked my interest to learn more about them all. These books are definitely a conglomeration of knowledge that any young adult would have fun learning about.