Flashback
2012
- fantasy
- psychic ability
- ability
- memory
- elves
- fiction
- children's fiction
- young adult fiction
- coming-of-age
- friendship
The story
Shannon Messenger's seventh book in her explosive series is one of her best yet. Her story about Sophie Foster, the girl who discovers she is an elf and has to go live in the Lost Cities has captured readers around the world. Don't miss this book, you will sorely regret it.
What it’s like
Brisk, close-third prose that moves quickly through its scenes, with short chapters that end on hooks and a voice that stays chatty and warm rather than lyrical. The world is lush in a bookish way: floating-city and forest settings rendered through concrete sensory detail like bioluminescent plants, shimmering elf-made architecture, and the bustle of a school full of teenagers, with the glow of magic described as something you can almost feel on the skin. The mood is busy and hopeful, a restless curiosity tempered by friendship and a low thread of worry. It suits a long afternoon on a sofa, a train commute where you want to keep turning pages, or a stretch of reading where you want a companion rather than a challenge. Its people are young and loyal, and the emotional arc follows a girl learning to trust her own strange gifts and the friends who stand by her. Intensity is mild: action and peril appear in bursts of fast danger and magical combat, but the violence is not graphic and the fear stays in the young-adult register. It's for readers who want an energetic, friendship-centred fantasy with a playful edge and a series-driven pull.
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