Journey’s End

One of my favorite authors strikes again! A really fun and wonderful story. Definitely reading again.

My 9 year old son loved it!

My daughter enjoyed the book. She is a fan of the author.

Wow! A typical summer vacation becomes a magical quest in this wonderful middle grades adventure. Nolie travels from Georgia to visit her father, who is studying and odd phenomenon in Scotland. She thinks it will jut be a chance for the two of them to reconnect after 6 months apart. Instead, she finds herself drawn into helping save the entire town from a curse hundreds of years old, while making some new friends along the way.

Living close to Dollywood and the madness that is the tourist season here in East Tennessee, I suppose I can relate a little to the townsfolk and their reliance on the tourists who come to see the “Boundary.” But that commonality can only stretch so far, since we don’t have a cursed fog that swallows up boats, people, and even pieces of the town. Nolie’s fascination with ghosts and the supernatural is like that of many other who enjoy watching TV shows about paranormal investigators. It seems odd in comparison to her father’s focus on science, but at least they are interested in the same thing, even if it is manifested in different ways.

This might have just remained a story of scientific vs. magical world views, except that the author also includes some very real descriptions of what friendship is like during late preteen and early teenage years. Nolie’s new friend, Bel, has experienced the loss of her best friend to the new girl at school and has been dreading her summer alone. And both girls meet Albert and have to deal with the awkwardness of boys and girls being friends at that age when everyone seems so aware of gender differences. There is also the tension of parents and children not agreeing on the best way to solve a problem.

The characters are entertaining and at times tug on your heartstrings as you read. (If I say that Alice needs to go soak her head, am I being too judgmental?) I would enjoy seeing them tackle a new quest together, but I can also be satisfied with how things ended.

I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley.

I enjoyed this story a lot, and the characters were pretty great. While I didn’t fully love this book, aw, I’m really glad that I read it. Because the mystery was interesting and I liked the place it was set in. A tiny Scottish village, our time. It was exciting. There is a bit of magic, which was awesome. And such an interesting story.

I don’t know how much I’m going to write about this book, as it was pretty short, and I don’t want to talk about all the things that happened, as there weren’t that much. But I’m still going to write about some of it, and try to share why I liked this book, and why I didn’t love it. One thing I do love, though, is the pretty cover. Yay.

I found the writing in this book to be pretty good, which I’m happy about. And as I said, I liked the story a lot. This book is about a mysterious fog that is just outside this village. If people go into the fog, they never come back. It has been like this for hundreds of years, and no one knows why. There isn’t any way to get their missing people back either. Which I found to be so interesting to read about. And I wanted to know more about this fog, I wanted to know why it was there, and what happened to all the missing people. I’m a little bit disappointed in how it ended, sigh, but I still liked most of it. I liked reading about them figuring things out. I enjoyed reading about this town a lot. The book is set in our time, and yet this town felt pretty old fashioned, in some way.

This book is told from the point of view of twelve year old Nolie and Bel. Nolie just arrived in this village to spend the summer with her father, whom is trying to study the fog and such. I did like getting to know her. Nolie was a great girl, and I liked her a lot. But I also didn’t love her, because I felt like I did not know her well enough. Aw. I wish there had been more about her, more things to love about her. Because I do feel like I could have loved her lots, if the book had been longer and more detailed. It could have been more.

Then there is Bel, who has lived in this place her whole life. I liked this girl a whole lot too. She was pretty sweet and kind. I loved reading about her past a little, because it was sad, with how her former friend had treated her. It was interesting to read about, though. I liked reading about her family, they seemed pretty good. But yeah, I also felt like I didn’t get to know this girl enough. Aw. I mean, I liked reading about both girls, but also felt like it could have been written more, done a bit better. Ending was too rushed; not good.

I really like reading about Nolie and Bel becoming friends, though. It was sweet. And I enjoyed reading about them hanging out and doing things together. But there was also too little of that. And I didn’t like the time jumps, as there had suddenly gone a whole week, then two weeks, and nothing had happened, and I have no idea what happened between those days. Hmph. Oh, I wish this book had been longer, so that I could have loved it. Aw. Well, I think I would have loved it. But even so, I did like it a lot. Just not enough.

This story is about the fog. How it has started to move closer to the village. There is also a boy. Albert. Who went missing a hundred years ago in the fog, and he just came back. Nolie and Bel are the only ones who know who he really is, as Bel have been seeing a photo of him her whole life. I liked how they all became friends, though that was too short too, hmph. As I didn’t see enough about them just being together. Aw. But they did have a cute friendship, even so, and I did enjoy reading about them all. Yay.

I’m not going to write more about this book now, because it really is pretty short. But there is a mystery. And these three kids are working on figuring out how to stop this fog. Journey’s End was an interesting and somewhat exciting story. I liked the mystery of it all, and I mostly liked the characters. But yeah, I did not love it, and I feel a bit sad about that. Aw. But I’m still happy that I read this book. And I do think that you should be reading it too, as it was a pretty sweet middle grade book. Must now read more by Rachel.

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This review was first posted on my blog, Carina’s Books.

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