Magonia By Maria Dahvana ~ Book Review

Title:  Magonia 

Author: Maria Dahvana

Pages: 320 pages

Published: April 28th, 2015

Goodreads Summary:  

Aza Ray is drowning in thin air. 

Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. 

So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn't think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia. 

Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—and as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war is coming. Magonia and Earth are on the cusp of a reckoning. And in Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

Thoughts: 

I will try to keep this as organized as possible. I have a lot of things to say about this book and I will try to stay on topic. I have a lot of positive and negative feelings about this book and I am struggling with how to rate this book. So let's just do this! 

Why did I pick up this book??

• First of all, the cover. It is stunning! Pictures do not even give this cover justice. It is one of the most prettiest covers ever. Five stars for the artist who designed this book. It definitely played a role in how quickly I picked this one up.

• Epic Reads was saying that it was a mesh-up between: The Fault in our Stars, Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Stardust. I have not read Stardust but I have read DOSAB and it is one of my favorite series of all-time and I enjoyed TFIOS. 

• The synopsis sounds amazing! I love urban fantasies and I could not wait to read this one. 

What did I love about this book??

• The beginning of the book was very well written. I loved her writing style in the first part of this book. 

• Aza's story was heartbreaking. She has a rare lung disease that will eventually kill her. She has had it her entire life. She is almost 16 years old and has a great family and an awesome friend named Jason that supports her through it all. 

• The relationship between Aza and her friend Jason is fantastic. Their friendship is refreshing and much needed in the YA world. I loved their dialogue towards each other.

• Jason is such a well developed character. He is very unique and likable. He has OCD/autism characteristics. Even though the author does not go into details about it. 

• I loved the IDEA of this world. It was very whimsical and intriguing.

This image kept popping into my head while reading this book. :)

What did I NOT like about this book??

• The world building was VERY lacking. I felt like their was not enough details and explanations. The author basically just steers aways from the world and only focuses on the plot and characters. Which is really sad. She had such a great opportunity to make an incredible world and it was not even explored. Such a brilliant idea, but not executed throughly.

• The plot line was very predictable. I was waiting for something grand to happen or some big twist, but I was not surprised at all and I usually do not see anything coming in a book. This one was a little flat.

• The book was very rushed, especially the ending. The beginning was so great, but after that, the book was way too fast. I feel like she tried to fit a 500+ book into 300 pages.   

• The writing style was very inconsistent. It was very poetic and whimsy in the first part. The second half did not seem to have the same tone or voice. 

• The ending was not believable to me. I know this is a fantasy, but the author did not convince me. The author has to believe in their world so that  their audience will believe in it too.

• I wanted more. Way more. I feel like this was the draft of the story. It had some great bones but there was so much missing. 

Did this book meet my expectations? 

In a nut shell. No.

I can see why they compare it The Daughter of Smoke and Bone but the execution is completely different. The world in DOSAB is so vivid and detailed. Every characters, every piece of magic, and element is so well planned and described. You feel like you are in the world. I did not feel like I was in Magonia. 

Final Thoughts:

In the end, I did enjoy this book. I did have a lot of negatives but I hope the author really makes a come-back with the second book. She still has a opportunity to open this world up! I have not seen anything about a sequel, but the ending definitely does leave it open for another book. 

I would still highly recommend this book. It is original and has some great themes and characters. Definitely worth reading. I think my expectations were way too high. Since this is my favorite genre, I do feel that I am being a little too critical of the story. 

Goodreads Rating: 

The first part of the book definitely was a 4 stars. Once the book shifts to Magonia the rating went down for me.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this book. Have you read it?? Are you planning on reading it in the future?? 

Thanks for visiting! 

Happy Reading!!