Mayowa and the Sea of Words

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book.

I am afraid this book was not for me.

On the plus side, Mayowa is a likeable character although she seem to me to be very mature and sensible for her age, especially in today's world where I feel that children are generally quite immature. Mayowa's relationship with her grandfather and her loving family is very nicely portrayed. .

On the minus side, I just couldn't buy into the concept of releasing emotions somehow stored in particular books from previous readers and I dont like the term logosalter either.

After Mayowa develops her ability the pace slows and I was just starting to wonder how a whole book could be made out of the book jumping when luckily the villains are introduced and it picks up a bit. I think the villains showed potential, especially Danielle but they were under developed and no motive was given for their actions,

The footnotes are occasionally quite amusing but also very annoying, especially when, as in the ebook I read, you have to flip through a few pages to get the notes. I expect this will work better in a hard copy.

Finally, I think the book is too political and far too biased. It very much over simplifies the social issues of immigration/asylum seeking etc., to the extent that I think it might be quite difficult to use the book as a springboard for debate. with a child.

I see this is the first in a series. To be fair, I might read the next one to see which Important Issue we are championing this time.