Aza Ray is drowning in thin air.
Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live.
So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.
Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia.
Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—and as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war is coming. Magonia and Earth are on the cusp of a reckoning. And in Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?
Song For This Book: Trap Door by Stars
Why? A weird song for a weird book.
2/5
Have you ever read a book and thought to yourself: ‘I don’t do enough hallucinogenics for this?’
Yeah, me neither, until I read this book.
The premise for this book is brilliant. The idea of a land in the sky, ships that sail on air, and people wrapped up into something they had no idea even existed. Because of this, I actually have had my eye on it for a while. But when I sat down to listen to the audiobook, I wasn’t as pleased as I hoped I would be. The story itself was good, and I really want to be picked up by a ship in the sky and be a sky pirate, but the way it was told just didn’t work for me.
The Good Points of Magonia:
SKY PIRATES. And cloud whales. And ships that float on air. I wanna be a sky pirate. It took a while for me to get into it, but the idea is great as a general.
I loved the conflict in the end of the book, and how it was all done. There was the perfect amount of lead up to the story and so when it actually happens, it was so good.
I love the way that history played into this story, and the way that it was incorporated when everything went down. It was so well done, and the way it all came together in the end.
Absolutely amazing cover. Seriously. It’s so gorgeous.
The Downsides of Magonia:
Oh my goodness, the characters in this book are so obnoxious. I can see how they could appeal to some, but they drove me absolutely bonkers. Aza just whined and used her condition to get away with things and treat other people like dirt. Jason was irritatingly boring, because his entire existence revolved around Aza, as though he had no life of his own. I loved how they were both total nerds, but it wasn’t enough to make up for it.
This was compared a lot to Gaiman, which set my expectations so high. I feel like Gaiman has more organized universes, where this felt more like the standard YA novel that just didn’t have the same level of development or rules to the universe. So that didn’t help at all.
The style that this book is written in wasn’t my taste. It was less of a story, and more of a stream of consciousness, which was especially frustrating as I drove and couldn’t skip ahead. There is some great information in there, but most of it wasn’t relevant to the story at all, especially in the early parts of the book. When we get to the sky pirates, it gets better, but the first half of the book was a struggle.
Also on the previous note, this book also had way too many words in it. It could have been half the length and we wouldn’t have missed a thing plot-wise.
I was good with the sky pirates, and the whole world in the sky, and even the singing-being-magic bit, but there were some things that went beyond even my level of acceptable weird (which is pretty far line, I think). A bird living in your lung or other internal organ? Not my thing. Actually kinda weirds me out. I don’t like things poking around my internal organs, even fictionally. The bird people were weird too. Plus a few other things I won’t mention because spoilers.
All in all, this book wasn’t really my taste. If I had been reading it, I probably would have DNFed it pretty early on, but the audiobook helped to keep my a bit more hooked. Plus, sky pirates. If you really enjoy weird books, birds, or sky pirates, you’ll probably really enjoy Magonia!
Find Magonia on Book Depository
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