With thanks to netgalley and the author Zuheb Alep

The Golden Fountain had promise, but it was a book that just didn't hold my attention and I don't seem to be the only reviewer that had issues with this book. I plodded through this book, not really caring about any of the charaters or what happened to them.

First of all thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

I unfortunately could not get into this book, it was slow and felt very choppy in the writing. Maybe it was because it was geared towards a younger audiience, but I felt that I could not connect with the characters.

I had to put this one down after about 15% into the book because I was wasting so much time trying to get into it that I was unfortunately pushing other books that I would enjoy reading aside. So I called it quits and decided maybe I could come back to this one at a later point and give it another shot then. Maybe its my mood that is keeping me from being able fully enjoy this book. I like to give a book my whole attention when reading it to review and that just wasn't the case here so I don't want to give this an unfair chance at a review it deserves if right now isn't the right timing for me.

That being said, this book might be perfect for someone else, or a younger audience, and so therefore I don't suggest not trying this book, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you again for the opportunity to read this.

This book really wasn’t my cup of tea - I tried but I had to put it down at the 50% mark :( I’m sure it’s not a bad book at all, just wasn’t for me

Found this very hard going. It reads like it was written by a child. The plot is very haphazard and incoherent. It meanders and has no depth. Everything is very surface level and two dimensional. It’s almost like the author plotted every single twist in what they thought would be really thrilling and exciting and then tired to fill in the gap. It didn’t feel organic. Took far too long to read.

The Golden Fountain

by Zuheb Alep



Rating: ♥

Pages: 320

Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd

Publishing Date: February 28th 2018

Synopsis:

The Golden Fountain is the story of a twelve-year old Benjamin, a rebellious boy whose fierce desire to become a leader is threatened by the children disappearing around his city. The citizens of the city has long suffered their children’s disappearance, but the fact that they were never discovered leads Benjamin to finally decide one thing; he would creep on-board a ship carrying eight thousands soldiers to rescue them around the world.
This story is set parallel in a world to our own, with magical creatures such as talking snow-cats bred for war, winged humans with elemental powers, birds as large as a horse and ferocious witches.
This world is more than magical, with the balance of light and darkness about to break. Only Benjamin can prevent that with his unbreakable sword and a unique compass. Fall into a story completed with many themes, mostly about love and worst of all … death. (Goodreads)

Mini - Review:

Okay, so I hate to admit it, but this was the first book I DNFed for ages, and I did not do it lightly. But this whole book had too many loose ends and no red line to follow through.

Let us begin with the world building: There was no real world building. Like for real. The author just created a parallel universe to ours with slightly different names. And the lush writing made me feel like I am in a midcentury Arabian country, but there were all these European names like Nadine and April, and they had studded knives and all, but also TVs and Vans and it was just a big confusing mess with no story line to follow through. The author threw in several names of places and organizations, like the reader should already know all of them, and there were ghosts, and kidnapped children and princes, but also Queen Elizabeth? It was just a mess. I don't say that to insult the author, but world building is more than just introducing new stuff without any proper explanation. I mean it could also have been set in our world for what we know, so why play an entire new universe?

And the characters were difficult for me too. I mean yes it is middle grade children book, but why has everyone on the streets to be friends with each other and why is everything happening so fast and without any sense? Children are kidnapped on the streets and then other CHILDREN search for these children ON THE STREETS and get also kidnapped without any sign. What a surprise. That was just weird and not surprising. And all this sweetness like " we all love strawberries and blueberry ice"... well I wasn't like that when I was thirteen, that's for sure. Also there were so many names and characters introduced and I was always confused who is who, and do we we love them, and why is everybody best friends now with someone I never heard of before?

Okay I'll stop the rant now. Maybe the book is making more sense in the end, but I couldn't get into the story at all (though I often read middle grade books and always love them!) . Maybe the book should have been better curated, because the idea had absolute potential and was what lured me in in the first place. The lush writing was absolutely wonderful and I'd like to read a book in the future by this author, when the story building has improved some more!

(September 4th 2018)

*I received an ARC or review copy of this book for free from NetGalley or the author in exchange for an honest review.*

I really like this book, but was really thrown off with the ending and felt confused a good chunk of the book with certain terms or situations that occurred without a better explanation of what they meant. If things like "lonely child" and "children's code" were elaborated on more concurrently in the book, I would've enjoyed it way more. Otherwise, a solid read. I liked the concept and can't wait for a sequel.

Although a little bit of a slow burn I liked The Golden Fountain. I feel like I would have enjoyed this very much as a 12 year old but I might have needed someone to convince me to keep going as the story doesn't really pick up until 2/3rds through.

The Golden Fountain is the story of a twelve-year old Benjamin, a rebellious boy whose fierce desire to become a leader is threatened by the children disappearing around his city. The citizens of the city has long suffered their children’s disappearance, but the fact that they were never discovered leads Benjamin to finally decide one thing; he would creep on-board a ship carrying eight thousands soldiers to rescue them around the world. 

This story is set parallel in a world to our own, with magical creatures such as talking snow-cats bred for war, winged humans with elemental powers, birds as large as a horse and ferocious witches. 

This world is more than magical, with the balance of light and darkness about to break. Only Benjamin can prevent that with his unbreakable sword and a unique compass. Fall into a story completed with many themes, mostly about love and worst of all … death.- Goodreads

Jumping right into this review, I was disappointed in this read and I was for several reasons.

The book starts off strong and with the promise of magic and prophecy. But after a few chapters it doesn't deliever.
The opening chapter begins off Benjamin recalling a dream that is pretty much a premonition. But once this happens the author proceeds to stretch any mention of this or any form of prophecy, magic for some time.
 Benjamin, although his intentions are pure, he has a narrow mind to what he wants and how he wants it. He doesn't think things through and for the most part has a fairly easy journey. Yes, there are some complications but the journey is fairly smooth, which is surprising for a boy under the age of 16.
It is very hard to tell the difference in where the story is taking place and what time period. Yes, it is in a parallel world and there are modern aspects or details in the story but it doesn't flow where you 1: feel confident about the setting and 2: get confused by how its a fairly modern world i.e. cars but balloon travel is needed.
The book was drawn out and utterly slow.
Despite these issues with the book, I felt that the the premise or what I believe the author was reaching for was strong enough to warrent me to finish the book. I think that the book would have been stronger if there was more going on and if Benjamin developed better and/or had a better sense of being a good hero was opposed to just wanting to do what is right at any cost.

Based on this, I give this book an overall score of

2 Pickles

Reading this novel felt as if I was being told a fable in a fanciful storytime. Visions of apparitions, mysterious circumstances, and impending peril for the young hero make this tale a delightful read.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for a free digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I DNF'ed this book at just 17%. I was looking forward to reading this given the premise but I really struggled once I actually started the book. The audience is thrust head first into the parallel universe which is mostly just names of real life places altered a bit. At first the setting seems medieval but then telephones are brought up. It's hard to tell the ages of the characters e.g. the main character acts and thinks like an adult but other characters treat him like a child. Even character dynamics are put on the page without any real background. New characters and places are introduced without much explanation and in a book which already has more than 5 or 6 characters on the page at any given time, so it just ends up confounding the reader. I kept thinking that maybe this was a sequel and I hadn't read the first book but that isn't the case. There are some plot points and characters I would follow but the execution is not very well done so this book just wasn't for me, which saddens me because I love stories with magic & young protagonists.

DNF @ 55%

Okay, so some middle grade are for me and some aren’t and this is one that just isn’t.

First of there is basically no world building at all! You are just thrown into this parallel world to our own that makes no sense and then nothing is explained. Maybe it will be in the end but I just can’t force myself to push through another 150 pages when I don’t care. And yes this is parallel to our world, it’s basically our world but they slightly changed the spelling of everything and then threw some weird magical items in.

Examples of the names:

Book: Aradia, Egypta, Afrika, Europia, etc.

Real: Arabia, Egypt, Africa, Europe.

Okay next, I’m just bored. As there is no development or world building I can’t connect with characters & the world doesn’t interest me so I’m just bored reading about characters I don’t care about in a world that makes no sense.

Also, this book is just constant action that makes no sense. Like I said, nothing is explained so we just jump from event to event with no reasoning as to why. Then that thing just ends without explanation and we move onto the next ridiculous thing.

Also, there are so many characters!! Half of them we meet for like one chapter and then don’t hear about again. It’s impossible to keep track of everyone as there is just so many.

Then there is the similarities to other books & movies that I noticed. They aren’t big things but things like ‘Stellotape’ I have no idea why they didn’t just call it Sellotape when most of the other random objects in the book don’t get name changes. But ‘Stellotape’ reminded me straight away or ‘Spellotape’ from the Wizarding World. Next we have a magic compass that points to the thing you want most. Sound familiar?

*GIF from Pirates of the Caribbean*

Then there is the excessive use of Explanation marks. It’s not all the time but I noticed a heap of spoken sentence that had a ‘!’ behind it for no reason. Let me give you an example.

*Please be aware that this quote is from the ARC and may differ from the finished published work*

" “What? No!” said Jordanna "

SAID! SAID does not mean yelled. Make up your mind. Is she saying or yelling it. Like it just contradicts its self so often.

Then there is also the very abrupt description/observations of characters. Let me give you another quote.

" He soon woke at the sound of Benjamin’s voice and began propping up his fat body "

Uhm? Is that necessary? I suppose at least he didn’t say it out loud.

Overall:
So overall, I am simply not enjoying this book and don’t want to continue. Also I’m just coming out of a reading slump and don’t want to force a not enjoyable book on myself right now!!

Also just a little warning. There is a fair bit of death, violence and abuse in this book. And it is marked at ‘Young Adult’ even though the main character is 12.