Mini Review: Akarnae

review

MINI REVIEW: Akarnae (The Medoran Chronicles #1)
by Lynette Noni
Publication date: 31 May 2015
Publisher: Pantera Press

Buy it: Angus & Roberson – Booktopia

Goodreads: EMBRACE THE WONDER.

The First Book in the Medoran Chronicles

With just one step, sixteen-year-old Alex Jennings’s world changes – literally.

Dreading her first day at a new school, Alex is stunned when she walks through a doorway and finds herself stranded in Medora, a fantasy world full of impossibilities.

Desperate to return home, she learns that only a man named Professor Marselle can help her… but he’s missing.

While waiting for him to reappear, Alex attends Akarnae Academy, Medora’s boarding school for teenagers with extraordinary gifts. She soon starts to enjoy her bizarre new world and the friends who embrace her as one of their own, but strange things are happening at Akarnae, and Alex can’t ignore her fear that something unexpected… something sinister… is looming.

An unwilling pawn in a deadly game, Alex’s shoulders bear the crushing weight of an entire race’s survival. Only she can save the Medorans, but what if doing so prevents her from ever returning home?

Will Alex risk her entire world – and maybe even her life – to save Medora?

The start of Akarnae was a slight information overload while also feeling like it didn’t matter very much. It was just some backstory about Alex and having to move around a lot because of her parents’ jobs. We start off with Alex moving to a new school, hence the backstory. But then she’s thrown into a whole new world, Medora, and that’s where the real story starts.

Noni’s writing is amazing. Her descriptions of the settings and characters were incredible. I found Akarnae to be a lovely mix of Harry Potter meets X-Men. Akarnae Academy is reminiscent of Hogwarts, with it’s gifted students and just the social environment of the school with the teachers and unique subjects. My favourite part was the Library and I’m not just saying that because I’m a book lover. The Library of Akarnae is the most incredible library you’ll ever come across!

One of my favourite things was Alex’s friendship with Bear and Jordan, her best friends at the school. I loved the banter between them as well as the fact that Alex’s relationship with both of them was purely platonic. Because yes people, it IS possible for girls and boys to be just friends.

Alex was very much the Chosen One but we don’t know exactly what that means just yet. Another let down for me was that I found there wasn’t a strong, clear plot line. It was a bunch of mini adventures throughout the book and that made me lose interest at times.