Friday 5 June 2015

Magonia Blog Tour: Review & Q&A with Maria Dahvana Headley





 
Magonia
Author:
Publication Date: June 4th 2015
Publisher: Harper Collins
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars in this fantasy about a girl caught between two worlds... two races…and two destinies.

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?



How to describe Magonia? I don't know how, so I'll just go with wow. There. I can't say I 100% got it, because I didn't, it got confusing at times, especially when Aza gets to Magonia, but not totally getting it doesn't necessarily mean I didn't like it, in fact, I freaking loved it despite that. You know all those comparisons X meets Y that are rather annoying at times because they are not even close to describing the book? This isn't one of them. I totally get why it was Stardust meets The Fault in Our Stars, but especially The Fault in Our Stars and not for the obvious reasons, the characters weren't the same, and neither was the writing, but it had that same feel to it, in a way characterisation, humour and the lyrical undertone in the writing, but you just have to read it to understand it, because it is unique and original and honestly? I haven't read anything else like it.