The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #1)

Full disclosure: I am a 49-year-old childless woman, and I LOVED this novel. I read it the first time because of my job as a bookseller… but I read it the second time purely for my own pleasure. When our sales rep came to pitch this title to us at the bookstore, he basically called it \”the next Harry Potter.\” Yeah, I\’ve heard that before. But honestly, of all the middle grade fantasies I\’ve read in recent years, it most captures that same sense of fun and wonder of the Harry Potter novels. The story is about Morrigan Crow, a young girl who is not only cursed, but doomed. She is saved from her fate at the last minute by an eccentric character named Jupiter North and whisked away to Nevermoor. There she lives in Jupiter\’s hotel, which is populated by giant talking cats, dwarf vampires, and other colorful and highly entertaining characters. But there\’s a catch–in order for her to remain safely in Nevermoor, she must compete for one of the few coveted spots in the Wundrous Society. This first novel in the series is a great introduction to Morrigan\’s world, and it\’s denizens. Gemma Whelan does a great job with the performance–highly animated, but not cartoonish. I absolutely love putting this book in my customers\’ hands. And clearly I am a very immature woman, because I can\’t wait to get my hands on a copy of the second book in the series!

Disclaimer, this book is aimed at middle school and I am an adult. This review, then, is really geared toward adults. I had heard how wonderful this book was and heard phrases like \”the next Harry Potter\”. It isn\’t. Well it might reach the same level of commercial success, but it is not of the same quality as the Potter books. I think it might even be unfair to this book to make the comparison. It is actually a very good book. it doesn\’t have the depth or the well developed characters of Potter, but it is a good read with humor and adventure a plenty. The characters are likeable (or despicable in the case of the villians) but without much depth. My only read complaint is that Morrigan is supposed to be eleven years old but comes off as much older. It makes the occasional really poor child-like decisions she makes jarring. It really is a minor enough quibble. I did enjoy the book, even as an adult, and will very likely read the next.

This story has been compared with Harry Potter, and I can see where that comparison comes from. It shows the amazement, delight, and fear of an 11-year-old child unexpectedly transplanted into a more magical realm. Harry\’s wonderment at discovering Diagon Alley, later Hogwarts, and boredom in Professor Binn\’s class (even magical things can get dull), are emotional notes this story hits and hits well. Harry Potter, however, solved mysteries. He figured things out, and went out of his way to take heroic action. By contrast, Morrigan Crow frets about things but never figures anything out (or is given the tools to) until they eventually come to a head and reveal themselves to her. She enters every one of her trials with very little sense of what to expect and no preparation on her part. Like Alice in Wonderland, Morrigan is buffeted about from one mad situation out of her control to another. She has very little ability to influence the overall direction. Whimsical elements appear regularly that seem to serve no purpose other than to create whimsy. For example, Jupiter claiming that his full name with all of his titles attached is his \”nickname\”, leading to a brief debate with Morrigan about the purpose of nicknames. It\’s because his nickname is so long that his friends call him something else \”for short.\” Fretting a lot and being baffled by illogic are more Alice\’s traits than Harry\’s. Also like Alice, dealing with certain doom is one of Morrigan\’s most impressive traits. Faced with the absolute certainty that all is lost and she is going to die, probably painfully, she finds it in herself to keep moving forward and not give up. Of course, Alice in Wonderland is a dream, which explains both the craziness and her lack of panic, as threats in dreams are often less frightening. Morrigan doesn\’t have the advantage of facing danger that isn\’t actually real, so she seems to simply have more than an average amount of never-give-up in her personality. At the end, as various story threads are picked up and tied together, both Morrigan and the reader are able to understand what has been going on and why, at least in part. I could see the possibility opening for Morrigan to start to have some real agency in her story, now that she\’s not acting blindly. If that happens, it will be in the sequel. I debated giving the story aspect a higher rating, as the world building was lovely, and the characters fun if somewhat maddening at times. But this felt too much like the story existed to establish the universe and the characters, and not to be its own story. We got some great character development for Morrigan and others, which could pay off in the sequel(s) if she gets the opportunity to be the hero of her story.

The music interlude at the end of each chapter killed the flow of the story and was out of place. Story was interesting and surprising

I think this was on sale so I bought it to listen to. I am not a child, but I enjoyed the book. A lot of children\’s magical stories tend to be carbon copies and I didn\’t get that feel with this one. It was original enough to leave you wondering what was happening and what would happen next. A good read, even for adults. I hope Jessica Townsend writes more of this series. I enjoyed the reader Gemma Whelan too. She probably added to the enjoyment of the story because she was able to bring more to the story in how she read it.

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