Release Date: April 28th 2015
Pages: 309
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: HarperCollins
When Aza Ray Boyle dies in the middle of an unusual storm; one life ends and another begins. Because her true destiny lies with the captain of a ship that sails the sky, but not everyone on Earth is ready to let Aza go.
This small YA fantasy soars to epic heights; it’s highly imaginative with curious characters and one of the most satisfying and intimate YA love stories I’ve read in a while. There is a real kinship between Aza and her best friend as their friendship becomes more and it just works.
Grief and loss play a big role in Magonia and Headley beautifully navigates it. The audiobook narrators, Michael Crouch and Therese Plummer bring these fraught emotions to life with their full-bodied performances. Plummer in particular comes out of the gate in chapter one with a strong and unique voice to match Aza’s “snarky tone”. Unfortunately, Plummer and Crouch don’t offer much range when it comes to other characters but the audiobook is still a must-listen.
When I said this was a little YA novel I meant it. This book comes in at just over 300 pages, and I felt it. We glaze over a lot of small moments that I think would have been necessary to really feel apart of the world Headley builds.
I don’t want to give to much away and this is such a hard book to describe like I could call it a Fantasy-bio-punk-pirate novel with environmental undertones. . . but that just doesn’t do it justice
So let’s call it an epic tale with a touching love story or a debut YA novel that is Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan meets Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
Yep. I think that works
1/2 of the blogging duo at Books and Sensibility, I have been blogging about and reviewing books since 2011. I read any and every genre, here on the blog I mostly review Fantasy, Adult Fiction, and Young Adult with a focus on audiobooks.