Can I interest you in a young adult (and really skewing toward the 10-12 crowd) series about the horrors of war, genocide, and racism (speciesism)?
I knew going in that the book was about war even if that's not explicitly clear. When I was re-reading The Hunger Games this summer, one of the versions was a special edition with an interview from the author, and so Suzanne Collins has been specializing in the bad parts of war, the PTSD, deaths, etc., in a post 9-11 world.
But to a certain extent, I'm getting off track.
Our series is about a kid who is obviously the Chosen One even when it's obvious he shouldn't be the Chosen One (he's just a regular kid, he doesn't know how to use a sword, etc.). He lives in the real world but has to keep returning to the Underland to save their tails because of prophecies. Always a prophecy.
The first one is a fun little adventure away from home that just so happens to feature treason, battles, loss of loved ones, and so on. And then it gets worse after that.
In the third book, there is a curse of the warmbloods and a prophecy no one knows what to do with.
The second book began the thread, but the third book dives into it in earnest: War is bad and should always be the last resort. And then it keeps doubling down on that.
Along the way, our protagonist learns life lessons like genocide is bad.
It's not a light series even though it's written in a light way. In some ways, it's darker than The Hunger Games, even though those books were far more gory.
I won't be sprinting through the last two books, but I'll definitely be finishing this series.
4/5 stars. Not a bad way to kill a trip on the highway.
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