Saturday, March 28, 2009

Pendragon: The Merchant of Death


By D.J. MacHale

Bobby Pendragon is as normal as a 14 year old boy can get; a nice family, living in the suburbs, an annoying sister, a dog, and (hopefully) his first girlfriend. The only anomaly is the rare visits from his Uncle Press, who Bobby considers the best Uncle a kid can have, showering him with presents and good advice. When Uncle Press shows up right before the big basketball county finals to ask Bobby to help him, how can Bobby refuse? How could Bobby have known that following his Uncle would lead him to a doorway to another dimension, where the people live like they are in the middle-ages? But there are many more problems than Bobby thinks as he struggles to find a way to help the people of Denduron and find his way back home.

Yes, I started another series. I should smack myself for getting into this one, but it was quite fun to read. This wasn’t the average series. Bobby wasn’t what I expected in a ‘hero’ of the story. He really struggled with deciding to help the people, and he was pretty stinking scared to do it. I enjoyed the very real problems and how Bobby (eventually) solves some of them. Instead of the whole, “I was scared, but I knew what I had to do,” kind of stuff, he was saying, “I started to cry and I wanted to go home, and I seriously might’ve wet myself.” It made me laugh, although it took me a while to adjust to his very honest way of saying things. Although there is a warning for this book: there is language. Bobby has a little bit of a potty mouth. It’s nothing like Jack Ryan from Clancy or anything, just here and there. It was the one thing that consistently bothered me. Otherwise, it was entertaining, and different as a series book, and it makes you think about how we treat each other as human beings, among other things. It was a good read and well written in the perspective of a 14-year-old boy.

Fun fact: This series has 8 books so far, so if you don’t want to get into that, it’s fine. I was a little reluctant myself. And trust me, MacHale leaves the ending with just enough to hook you into reading the next book. That’s going to be my first stop on Monday after work. Book 2….here we go!

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