Review: The Novice

The Novice by Taran Matharu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Look. I've watched, like, 11 seasons of Supernatural, so when a blurb tells me a main character can summon DEMONS, I'm expecting some badass mofos that are gonna tear the place up.

What did this book deliver?

HARRY POTTER MEETS POKEMON.

To say I was disappointed is an understatement.

So let me have my lil (actually huge) rant and then I'll say some good stuff to soften the blow, okay?

Firstly, Fletcher seems like an okay character to begin with, and Didric was a total douchebag so I kinda wanted Fletch to get some revenge. I loved the early village stuff. I was really rooting for the guy.

But then he gets to this Battle School (don't even get me started) and he just becomes like this Perfect Prince of Justice and Equality For All and I can't deal with how ridiculously polite and accepting he is. He's always like, 'oh, I am so completely sorry, I can understand why you would feel this way, and perhaps want to kill me, but I would really like to explain to you that it would be better if you didn't kill me. But I can totally understand why you would want to, so you just go ahead if that's what you need to do.' and he instantly befriends everyone (except the bad guys, duh, because treating everyone equally obviously doesn't include bad guys) and when people yell at him he just apologises and tells them he understands and they apologise back and POOF! instant BFFs. THIS ENRAGED ME. No one has a spark of humour, no personality, no bite. They are all just boring pacifists. WHERE IS THE SASS??

So then we start having classes and meeting new people and teachers and I am not kidding when I say this seems to have borrowed a little bit from Harry Potter. The first two people Harry Fletcher befriends are a boy and girl who are kind of loners who are frowned upon by the nobles. He's also picked on by a snotty lil noble boy who doesn't think commoners should be allowed at Hogwarts Battle School. And the principal of the school seems a bit biased in his favour. As do most of the (non-evil) teachers. But the characterisation here really sucks because everyone is pretty 2D and no one really gets their own shining moments or background or anything, really. It's all Harry Fletcher. Who is an arrogant fool who bosses everyone around like he's the Chosen One. Huh. He also becomes strangely attached to teachers for no reason? What a weird kid.

So the worst part of this book ripping off elements of bestsellers like HP and LOTR is that it fails miserably where those books succeeded so brilliantly. For example, I was never a big HP fan, but damn, I developed a soft spot for Snape. He's so deliciously malicious. This book couldn't even make it's villains entertaining. Everyone is so bland. Aragorn Arcturus is pretty cool but he's grossly misused. I liked Othello, but he kisses Fletcher's ass way too much. Seraph was fun and effortlessly cool but just not featured enough. He needed to have a bigger role. I coulda really fallen for that guy. (Note: I am not even kidding with these names. They just get more and more ridiculous.)

The writing is pretty terrible, and I would think this should be classified more as Middle Grade, than YA. It's immature and has gaping plot holes all through it, and Fletcher constantly assumes the correct outcomes as though he's actually psychic. No one ever makes mistakes - no one ever thinks the wrong thing, jumps to the wrong conclusions, slips up with the magic ... it just adds to how boring the whole thing is. I mean, I was entertained enough by the story but there's just no drama. Easier to overlook in a new series, as there's plenty of world-building to keep things interesting, but it doesn't give me much hope for the next book in the series. It's all well and good to have creativity and a unique story idea, but you need to be decent at storytelling, too, and go a bit deeper than the single story you want to tell. I like fantasy to have layers, like a head of lettuce - where everything kinda overlaps and it gets better the deeper you go. This story settles comfortably on the surface, and we all know what happens to the outermost layers of a lettuce, right? (I throw mine in the compost. Does anyone ever actually eat them?! [I hope not. It'll ruin my metaphor.])

So, to recap:
-Fletcher is too perfect, making him perfectly annoying
-This book blatantly rips off better fantasy series, particularly HP and LOTR.
-The writing is terrible
-The story is shallow

Now, THE GOOD!

The whole demon thing.

So completely not what I was expecting. As I said, Supernatural has trained me to expect chaos and darkness and mayhem with my demons. There is zero chaos and darkness and mayhem relating to demons in this book.

That being said, these demons are the freaking cutest things ever.

This is where the Pokemon similarities come in. Because 'demons' are actually these cute lil hybrid animals from 'the Ether' who are Summoned and become bonded with their summoner. So Fletcher ends up with this lil salamander demon who is basically Mushu sans sass and more adorable. But this book describes a ton of these things (and they're all adorable - there's bonus content in this edition that includes sketches and the lil smile on the Golem's face is priceless. He's so freaking happy!) and they have battles and stuff and look, it's basically Pokemon. These kids are all basically training to Be The Very Best and Catch 'Em All.

And I don't even care how cheesy and terrible that makes this story. Animals are cute, and hybrid animals that do cool things and are super loyal will easily steal my heart and make everything okay again.

So basically, the HP part is terrible but the Pokemon part is a whole lot of ridiculous fun and there are a lot of stupid names but I guess it's not so bad. It's a terribly written fantasy with rubbish people but great animals.

Recommended for: People who love Pokemon, people who love fantastical animals, people who love horrendous character names

Avoid if: You don't want to see your precious Harry Potter ripped off (badly), you like a decent plot, you hate plot holes, you like depth, you're expecting a little carnage and/or mayhem, you hate animals (you monster!)

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