📚A non portal middlegrade fantasy trilogy 👌

Book 1 :

5 stars 🌟

Not a Portal Fantasy. 😃

Here is a political intrigue that leads to revolution, fit for middle-grade readers. It starts as a kids' adventure, but will grow into a larger world, involving more characters and their goals. It will please Philip Pullman readers and older readers as well. They will challenge set rules and traditions for a better future. I can't leave this fact out of my review: the children leave the mountain seeking a cure for their father's eyes and will find their mother in a world of deceit. Finding her becomes the core of it all. A chessboard-like society where each step must be considered wisely or suffer the consequences. A coming-of-age story of making the right choices, but with the wit to listen and try to understand the other side. At first we may dislike some characters and their arguments, but selfish or not they have a point in wanting more than fitting a quiet box that society built for them, ignoring how smart they are. Still, some ambition can lead to the benefit of all or just personal greed. It raises great questions.

I loved when their mother says something like... she was funny always making others laugh, but often that is not synonymous with being happy, usually it's the opposite.

Book 2 :

3.5 stars 🌟

Think of this one as the last part pf book 1.

I think of this one as two distinct parts. The first being in the small village on the mountain, after saving their father, dealing with a Winter of changes, acceptance, coming of age, focusing not as much on the siblings and a lot on Rumi. I didn't care much for Rumi's plight, so I found the middle of this volume and the transition back to the city a bit dragging, as if in this first part the author was still trying to figure out what to go for after a high-stakes, always-action, and novelty of uncovering the world (in book 1). It suffers a bit from the second-book curse, but the very last chapters pick up the action, setting up the third volume.

I still like the writing style and the siblings.

I was disappointed with the author's choices for their mom. She was a very smart woman who realized she could do more than be a mother and a wife and a-something-else-to-another, and the author punished her brilliance and beauty in this book two and made her think she deserved it.

Book 3: