Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi is the first book in a juvenile fantasy series.
Twelve-year-old Aru Shah is a bit of an outcast. She isn’t as rich or popular as the kids at her school, so she tends to stretch the truth a bit. This time, it has gotten her in BIG trouble–world ending trouble.
Aru lives at the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture with her mom and when she gets caught in a lie, she lights a forbidden lantern and ends up releasing The Sleeper, who is going to end the world if not stopped. Well, it’s a good thing Aru is, unbeknownst to her, the reincarnation of one of the five Pandava brothers from Indian myth and it is duty to stop the sleeper and save the world… in her Spiderman pajamas.
With the help of a talking pigeon and one of her reincarnated Pandava brothers, who is allergic to everything and obsessed with death, Aru must travel to the Kingdom of the Dead and make right what she started. Sounds easy right?
Hmm, this was a slowwww read for me. I just opened it up and could not get into it, until about 200+ pages in. It did pick up speed toward the end but it was surprisingly hard to want to pick up this book. It has all the elements of a great juvenile fantasy and is somewhat reminicent of Riordan’s Lighting Thief, so many kids will probably enjoy it but I just couldn’t get into it.
There is a lot of great Indian myth and legend come to life in the book, which I think will appeal to a lot of kids but, not know much about these myths ahead of time myself, made me feel a little lost.
I don’t think I personally would continue the series but if a 5-7th grader were looking for a new one to start and liked the Riordan books, I think they might just enjoy this one.
This books gets 3 stars from me.
That’s all for now!
-M-
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