Review by Jamie Rodgers aged 14 for Read Between the Lines

The Kingdom of Malinas is an interesting book. The cover is a good, intriguing start that makes the book look really quite different. In the story the main character, Sorrel, is sixteen but she felt younger as I read the book. She has a sidekick, Little Cloud, who hates being called ‘little’: a very good and realistic touch.

The main theme of the plot is her and her friends rescuing their race from slavery by the Lamya, another tribe. There is a really good sub-plot in this, as the ruler of the Lamya is a cruel killer who rules his top men and women with threats and has fought his way from street urchin to the top. Some of his advisors do not like this and wish to kill him because of it.

There are some lovely twists to the norm for this kind of theme that make this book really worthwhile and I found myself not wanting to put it down. For example, when I thought I knew what would happen next, like they would go off and rescue everyone in the morning, something happened during the night and they found themselves better off in the long-run but having to wait another week, in which lots more events would take place.

I have only minor quibbles with the book. The narration jumps from impersonal to personal. An example of this is “Oh yes, Zev was back!” which is fine when a character is speaking but roughens the flow of the passage. The plot drops you in at the deep end, an exiting and gripping technique but would have benefited from more filling in later on. I assumed it was fairly long ago, with American-Indian style tribes.

The great thing about this book is how it starts with the common theme of the hero rescuing their kind but gives it many unique twists. A great book for boys, and girls as well, because the main character is a girl. I would say it would be ideal for the 10-15 age group but older and younger people may enjoy it too. All in all, a really good book and well worth reading.