Magonia

Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a fantastical gem of a read.

I love the world Maria Dahvana Headley built in the clouds. I was transported into this magical land and I didn’t want to leave. This is one of the few new releases I was actually excited to find out is a series and I will eagerly await the next installment. Truly unlike anything I’ve ever read.

The book follows Aza Ray, a teenager with a rare lung condition.. so rare, in fact, the disease is named after her. She is dying. Then one day she sees a ship in the sky and it seems to be calling her name.

Aza is taken away to a mysterious world in the clouds. Magonia. Here she isn’t sickly, for the first time in her life she can breath.

I read the book in one day, it was so difficult to put down. There was enough “background” to see what Aza had been going through during her life on the ground and build the strong relationships with those she loved. The love interest was believable.. thank goodness there was no insta-love. And the story was unique, but still easy to follow. As with many magical realism stories sometimes things get confusing because this is not the real world that we all know, but it was always easy enough to figure out what was going on in the story if you just kept reading.

I thought that Aza was a pain in the ass, but a pretty believable one for suffering from a terminal disease for as long as she can remember. And her character grew throughout the story, which is refreshing.

As a book, I found it to be very satisfying. It felt like a complete story, but I definitely will be picking up the next book when it comes out.

*I always feel like such a failure when reviewing such beautifully written books. My words do not do this justice. The writing-beautiful. The world-beautiful. The characters-well written and complex.. My words are lame – go read the book.

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