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The Trilogy of Two
Identical twins Sonja and Charlotte are musical prodigies with extraordinary powers. Born on All-Hallows-Eve, the girls could play music before they could walk. They were found one night by Tatty, the Tattooed Lady of the circus, in a pail on her doorstep with only a note and a heart-shaped locket. They’ve been with Tatty ever since, roaming the Outskirts in the circus caravans, moving from place to place.
But lately, curious things have started to happen when they play their instruments. During one of their performances, the girls accidentally levitate their entire audience, drawing too much unwanted attention. Soon, ominous Enforcers come after them, and Charlotte and Sonja must embark on a perilous journey through enchanted lands in hopes of unlocking the secrets of their mysterious past.
But lately, curious things have started to happen when they play their instruments. During one of their performances, the girls accidentally levitate their entire audience, drawing too much unwanted attention. Soon, ominous Enforcers come after them, and Charlotte and Sonja must embark on a perilous journey through enchanted lands in hopes of unlocking the secrets of their mysterious past.
399 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2015
24 people are currently reading
1278 people want to read
About the author
Juman Malouf
2 books30 followersJuman Malouf is known for her work on The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom and Fantastic Mr. Fox.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews
December 28, 2015
*i received a free copy of this book from Penguin-Random house in exchange for review. All opinions are my own!*
This might even be more like a 4.5 IDEK.
I really really REALLY liked this book. It was whimsical and magical and very different from other things I've read. It's a quirky and weird but overall wonderful middle grade fantasy book with an interesting plot and some great characters.
The two main characters are twins names Charlotte and Sonja who have an incredible knack for playing instruments. Their talent has been giving them trouble because some magic has started to come into play, and just when things are getting crazy with that magic something terrible happens that leads them on a fantastical journey!
I just loved Charlotte and Sonja and all of the side characters so much. They all had great dialogue and we're just very quirky. Tatty was great and so were all the other characters introduced that I don't want to say cuz SPOILERS
I also loved the world building but don't want to say much about that either because it's a lot more fun if you find out for yourself. Let's just say it was fantastic and magical.
The plot was also great and did a lot of things I wasn't expecting. So many things happened in this book I was so surprised! But overall so so great.
The one thing I didn't necessarily like is how fast things moved and how rash some decisions were - but hey, this is a middle grade book, so I'm not expecting detailed analysis of every single thing that happens.
You should definitely read this book! There's also illustrations which is great but I just overall really enjoyed it a lot. It's a fun read!
This might even be more like a 4.5 IDEK.
I really really REALLY liked this book. It was whimsical and magical and very different from other things I've read. It's a quirky and weird but overall wonderful middle grade fantasy book with an interesting plot and some great characters.
The two main characters are twins names Charlotte and Sonja who have an incredible knack for playing instruments. Their talent has been giving them trouble because some magic has started to come into play, and just when things are getting crazy with that magic something terrible happens that leads them on a fantastical journey!
I just loved Charlotte and Sonja and all of the side characters so much. They all had great dialogue and we're just very quirky. Tatty was great and so were all the other characters introduced that I don't want to say cuz SPOILERS
I also loved the world building but don't want to say much about that either because it's a lot more fun if you find out for yourself. Let's just say it was fantastic and magical.
The plot was also great and did a lot of things I wasn't expecting. So many things happened in this book I was so surprised! But overall so so great.
The one thing I didn't necessarily like is how fast things moved and how rash some decisions were - but hey, this is a middle grade book, so I'm not expecting detailed analysis of every single thing that happens.
You should definitely read this book! There's also illustrations which is great but I just overall really enjoyed it a lot. It's a fun read!
March 2, 2016
I am going to rate this one two stars, as there should be more two star reviews here, but really Juman Malouf's The Trilogy of Two is a solid 2.5. It is not a great book, but it also was not unenjoyable. I am not going to try too hard to summarize the plot. Essentially, a destined set of magical twelve-year-old twins are constantly on the run as they gather the forces of good for a final battle with the antagonists. Many magical places and characters are involved. It is quite the stuffed book.
My main complaints are echoed in the majority of reviews here. The twins, Charlotte and Sonja, are not particularly likeable. Maybe the sibling squabbles of my youthful days are half-forgotten or it might be that the experience of being a twin or a sister is too unfamiliar to me, but by the time I was halfway though the book, I had lost my patience with both of them. Until the last couple chapters, neither does anything to move the plot forward. Instead, the duo is surrounded by dozens of new friends with powers that take care of all obstacles (with a few wounds to recover from along the way). As if having our protagonists shepherded around was not unlikeable enough, each TWELVE-YEAR-OLD twin engages in their own unbelievable and annoying romantic relationship. There probably are some girls that age with giggle-inducing crushes with a portion of those who are ready and raring for a kiss or a declaration of love, but in Malouf's story it all happens too quickly to be at all sweet or even humorous.
The other characters in the book do not do much for me either. Alexandria, a character whose identity I guessed from a mile away, does not act in an understandable way. Arthur is similarly underserved. Edgar is infuriatingly two-dimensional and Wolf Boy just has a stupid name that lazily sticks out like a sore thumb. As readers, we are given no real understanding of the motivations of the two antagonists. This is especially true of the Contessa, who we are to presume has been evil her entire life. Neither are featured nearly enough in the story, Malouf instead preferring to show their wrath by way of albino hyena, swan, and ineffective 'scrummager' henchmen.
Much worse than the characters is the structure, of which there is none. Although the 'Trilogy' is divided into three books, their division seems completely arbitrary, especially between books two and three. The girls are basically on the run from the very first chapter and the pace of the story hardly ever slows. Our heroes are confronted with danger so often that concern for them decreases proportionately each time. One dazzling setting after the next rushes past. Relationships are born and broken within the space of a few chapters. At one point, several character identities/intentions are revealed all at once, so that none carries any real weight. It feels as if Malouf prioritized momentum and world-building above all else, but even then, we only see three of the "seven edens" she dreamed up. The book is a mess. It makes it really difficult to explain and sometimes exhausting to read.
And yet, I would be lying if I said there were not times when I got completely swept up. There is some part of me that really took pleasure in being constantly bombarded with all sorts of fantasy world details. Living tattoos, million-mile-high brick cities, singing eels, not just shapeshifters, but the ghosts of shapeshifters, the fairy/satyr/angel-esque tiffin... I lapped it up. In its best moments, The Trilogy of Two felt like a rambling bedtime story from an older sibling. Or maybe it might be more apt to describe it as a campfire story that ran long into the night. Juman Malouf comes off as an amateur with a huge imagination; some childlike part of her pulling from every story she has ever loved and squeezing as much in there as possible. Apparently she worked on the book for years, but it feels more like she dashed it out directly into a cover and handed it to me with youthful abandon. It does not make for a great book, nor a well-written book, but it does have a special sort of charm to it.
One final note on the illustrations. Some people liked them. They are the reason I picked the book off the shelf. But they feel more like costume designs than a necessary storytelling element. While technically adequate, I would not miss them if they were not there.
My main complaints are echoed in the majority of reviews here. The twins, Charlotte and Sonja, are not particularly likeable. Maybe the sibling squabbles of my youthful days are half-forgotten or it might be that the experience of being a twin or a sister is too unfamiliar to me, but by the time I was halfway though the book, I had lost my patience with both of them. Until the last couple chapters, neither does anything to move the plot forward. Instead, the duo is surrounded by dozens of new friends with powers that take care of all obstacles (with a few wounds to recover from along the way). As if having our protagonists shepherded around was not unlikeable enough, each TWELVE-YEAR-OLD twin engages in their own unbelievable and annoying romantic relationship. There probably are some girls that age with giggle-inducing crushes with a portion of those who are ready and raring for a kiss or a declaration of love, but in Malouf's story it all happens too quickly to be at all sweet or even humorous.
The other characters in the book do not do much for me either. Alexandria, a character whose identity I guessed from a mile away, does not act in an understandable way. Arthur is similarly underserved. Edgar is infuriatingly two-dimensional and Wolf Boy just has a stupid name that lazily sticks out like a sore thumb. As readers, we are given no real understanding of the motivations of the two antagonists. This is especially true of the Contessa, who we are to presume has been evil her entire life. Neither are featured nearly enough in the story, Malouf instead preferring to show their wrath by way of albino hyena, swan, and ineffective 'scrummager' henchmen.
Much worse than the characters is the structure, of which there is none. Although the 'Trilogy' is divided into three books, their division seems completely arbitrary, especially between books two and three. The girls are basically on the run from the very first chapter and the pace of the story hardly ever slows. Our heroes are confronted with danger so often that concern for them decreases proportionately each time. One dazzling setting after the next rushes past. Relationships are born and broken within the space of a few chapters. At one point, several character identities/intentions are revealed all at once, so that none carries any real weight. It feels as if Malouf prioritized momentum and world-building above all else, but even then, we only see three of the "seven edens" she dreamed up. The book is a mess. It makes it really difficult to explain and sometimes exhausting to read.
And yet, I would be lying if I said there were not times when I got completely swept up. There is some part of me that really took pleasure in being constantly bombarded with all sorts of fantasy world details. Living tattoos, million-mile-high brick cities, singing eels, not just shapeshifters, but the ghosts of shapeshifters, the fairy/satyr/angel-esque tiffin... I lapped it up. In its best moments, The Trilogy of Two felt like a rambling bedtime story from an older sibling. Or maybe it might be more apt to describe it as a campfire story that ran long into the night. Juman Malouf comes off as an amateur with a huge imagination; some childlike part of her pulling from every story she has ever loved and squeezing as much in there as possible. Apparently she worked on the book for years, but it feels more like she dashed it out directly into a cover and handed it to me with youthful abandon. It does not make for a great book, nor a well-written book, but it does have a special sort of charm to it.
One final note on the illustrations. Some people liked them. They are the reason I picked the book off the shelf. But they feel more like costume designs than a necessary storytelling element. While technically adequate, I would not miss them if they were not there.
July 10, 2020
3.5/5 stars
I usually read a lot of reviews before I begin reading a book. After reading some negative and positive reviews, I was actually not really excited to read this. The beginning lured me in, and I fell in love with this book! As much as I loved this book, I had a lot of problems with it.
The twins were so annoying! One was always whining and crying, and the other was boy crazy!
The book had a lot of unlikeable characters, and personally, the illustrations of the humans gave me nightmares. There were a lot of times I had no idea where we were in the book. Let's not forget these girls are twelve, and I think that is a young age to be falling in love and start kissing. A lot of the relationships were out of the blue. It has so much potential, but sometimes it just didn't go where it was trying to go. Wolf Boy?Really??
Other than that, the book is fun and imaginative! It is an interesting read that I highly enjoyed.
I usually read a lot of reviews before I begin reading a book. After reading some negative and positive reviews, I was actually not really excited to read this. The beginning lured me in, and I fell in love with this book! As much as I loved this book, I had a lot of problems with it.
The twins were so annoying! One was always whining and crying, and the other was boy crazy!
The book had a lot of unlikeable characters, and personally, the illustrations of the humans gave me nightmares. There were a lot of times I had no idea where we were in the book. Let's not forget these girls are twelve, and I think that is a young age to be falling in love and start kissing. A lot of the relationships were out of the blue. It has so much potential, but sometimes it just didn't go where it was trying to go. Wolf Boy?
Other than that, the book is fun and imaginative! It is an interesting read that I highly enjoyed.
October 18, 2017
Oh how I disliked this book. So much potential, but very little to show for it.
It starts out really well too, with the opening scene immediately gripping you and making you want to learn more about the twins and who they are and where they come from. It immediately sets the tone with the characterization, illustrating who is who and contrasting the twins so you quickly realize that although they are identical in looks, they are nothing alike in character.
What we know so far at this point, the twins have an incredible talent for playing instruments. One that has been utilized for a circus act of some sort, but recently, have been giving them trouble as magic has been getting in the way of their performance and they can't seem to control it - yet. We also know that they were raised and are looked after by a tattooed lady, Tatty, whom they consider their mother in many ways. But then, their trailer is attacked and somehow their musical gifts are stolen and they find themselves with no talent, and no job. So they run from the villains who stole their talents to try and gather some forces to help them fight evil and return all the talents to their respective owners. Oh, and I believe Tatty is kidnapped, and they head out to try and find her and save her.
So why didn't I like it? For starters, the twins are extremely unlikeable. I tried to find some redeeming quality, but it just went from bad to worse. Their development, alongside all of the other character developments, was extremely weak and flimsy. There was no depth of character and they were all very one-dimensional.
There was way too much drama. One of the twins, I can't remember which one, had a knack for falling in love on the spot. We're talking about twelve-year-old girls here. So she falls in love with one guy, then meets another good looking guy and decides she loves this one instead. In fact, she has a knack of becoming completely disloyal to her own identical twin sister and everyone she knows, because she reckons she found "the one", which I found incredibly frustrating, silly and absolutely ridiculous.
Meanwhile, the other twin sister, does nothing but complain about EVERYTHING. She moans and whines and won't stop hating on everyone and everything that is trying to ultimately help her on her perilous journey.
Then there's the constant arguing. The twins will not stop getting into fights. One twin can't seem to accept the fact that she isn't the most important thing in the other twin's life, and the other twin wants nothing to do with her sister, and wants to find her own path in life. You get to a point where you've had enough of all the bickering and time wasting and you just want to smack some sense into both of them. While all of this is happening, characters were introduced left and right, crowding the story, with no clear rhyme or reason, as they do all the fighting and saving and figuring out of things you need to figure out to move the story forward.
You get to a point in the story where you just don't care anymore. About anything or anyone.
One reviewer put it best when he said, "In its best moments, The Trilogy of Two felt like a rambling bedtime story from an older sibling."
I'll give it this - I really did enjoy the illustrations. That's something, right?
It starts out really well too, with the opening scene immediately gripping you and making you want to learn more about the twins and who they are and where they come from. It immediately sets the tone with the characterization, illustrating who is who and contrasting the twins so you quickly realize that although they are identical in looks, they are nothing alike in character.
What we know so far at this point, the twins have an incredible talent for playing instruments. One that has been utilized for a circus act of some sort, but recently, have been giving them trouble as magic has been getting in the way of their performance and they can't seem to control it - yet. We also know that they were raised and are looked after by a tattooed lady, Tatty, whom they consider their mother in many ways. But then, their trailer is attacked and somehow their musical gifts are stolen and they find themselves with no talent, and no job. So they run from the villains who stole their talents to try and gather some forces to help them fight evil and return all the talents to their respective owners. Oh, and I believe Tatty is kidnapped, and they head out to try and find her and save her.
So why didn't I like it? For starters, the twins are extremely unlikeable. I tried to find some redeeming quality, but it just went from bad to worse. Their development, alongside all of the other character developments, was extremely weak and flimsy. There was no depth of character and they were all very one-dimensional.
There was way too much drama. One of the twins, I can't remember which one, had a knack for falling in love on the spot. We're talking about twelve-year-old girls here. So she falls in love with one guy, then meets another good looking guy and decides she loves this one instead. In fact, she has a knack of becoming completely disloyal to her own identical twin sister and everyone she knows, because she reckons she found "the one", which I found incredibly frustrating, silly and absolutely ridiculous.
Meanwhile, the other twin sister, does nothing but complain about EVERYTHING. She moans and whines and won't stop hating on everyone and everything that is trying to ultimately help her on her perilous journey.
Then there's the constant arguing. The twins will not stop getting into fights. One twin can't seem to accept the fact that she isn't the most important thing in the other twin's life, and the other twin wants nothing to do with her sister, and wants to find her own path in life. You get to a point where you've had enough of all the bickering and time wasting and you just want to smack some sense into both of them. While all of this is happening, characters were introduced left and right, crowding the story, with no clear rhyme or reason, as they do all the fighting and saving and figuring out of things you need to figure out to move the story forward.
You get to a point in the story where you just don't care anymore. About anything or anyone.
One reviewer put it best when he said, "In its best moments, The Trilogy of Two felt like a rambling bedtime story from an older sibling."
I'll give it this - I really did enjoy the illustrations. That's something, right?
November 6, 2018
2.5 stars? This book needs to be a Tim Burton film. This book is insane. This book is like a really great adventure dream that seems absolutely fantastic until you try to tell someone about it or write it down, and then you realise it's just a mess of wtf. There's so much weirdness to like but ultimately too many issues and unending but very predictable drama that makes it difficult to slog through. The writing is pretty poor and stilted, with a whole lot of telling and cinematic drama that's pretty difficult to visualise. And while I liked the creepy illustrations early on, later they felt lifeless and too disconnected from the story. I'm not sure I've ever seen an illustrated book where not one scene or event or setting is represented in any of the pictures, and this made the illustrations just feel arbitrary and pointless. Also that title is terrible. With a world and story so stuffed with crazy imaginative stuff, it could have had a much better title.
Full review to come.
Full review to come.
May 22, 2019
2.75⭐️
Whimsical, weird and fell flat. The illustrations within made the book better but there was still a strangeness that I just couldnt get into.
I liked the twins and their circus music and their journey but i didnt feel connected or invested.
Whimsical, weird and fell flat. The illustrations within made the book better but there was still a strangeness that I just couldnt get into.
I liked the twins and their circus music and their journey but i didnt feel connected or invested.
October 9, 2015
This was pretty damn amazing. I kept getting that same thrill I first had when reading The Golden Compass. So many quirky characters and whimsical places were explored. My favorite characters kept changing (I settled on Sonja, the more serious of the two twins) and the action in this book never really slows down. Definitely recommend this to fellow fans of fantasy. The rich illustrations were the best part! I'm hoping she'll write another because there was so much more I want to know about.
January 25, 2016
1. Reminded me of the following books: Lord of the Rings, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, Chronicles of Narnia, Geek Love
2. I felt like I knew this world because the author gave us a 360 degree look around. At all times during the text I understood what was in front of me. All five senses were being used.
3. Two complaints about this book: 1) that I never felt like it breathed. It was non-stop from beginning to end. Is that completely bad? 2) The girls were 12 and it felt young to be having romances.
4. The characters were alive. The book was about triplets and I was the third, Beatrice. You thought "trilogy" was for the three books in the story. No. It was me. I met all of the characters just as Charlotte and Sonja did. My Talent was singing.
5. The illustrations leapt off the page. So beautiful.
6. The book dedication says, "For Hanan, my mother." The picture that goes with it is the exact one from Tatty's map that had the picture of Alexandria on it. Juman Malouf's mother is Alexandria in the story! And in the back it says "to two witches, Taryn and Hanan." Is that her two moms just like Tatty and Alexandria?
7. Basically this book was amazing. World building, characters, plot, magic, love, music, a circus, cats, all things I enjoy!
2. I felt like I knew this world because the author gave us a 360 degree look around. At all times during the text I understood what was in front of me. All five senses were being used.
3. Two complaints about this book: 1) that I never felt like it breathed. It was non-stop from beginning to end. Is that completely bad? 2) The girls were 12 and it felt young to be having romances.
4. The characters were alive. The book was about triplets and I was the third, Beatrice. You thought "trilogy" was for the three books in the story. No. It was me. I met all of the characters just as Charlotte and Sonja did. My Talent was singing.
5. The illustrations leapt off the page. So beautiful.
6. The book dedication says, "For Hanan, my mother." The picture that goes with it is the exact one from Tatty's map that had the picture of Alexandria on it. Juman Malouf's mother is Alexandria in the story! And in the back it says "to two witches, Taryn and Hanan." Is that her two moms just like Tatty and Alexandria?
7. Basically this book was amazing. World building, characters, plot, magic, love, music, a circus, cats, all things I enjoy!
December 10, 2018
I picked this up for the cover, which I really love. But I didn't love the book at all. Neither the characters nor the world was fleshed out; it was like these things had just been slapped onto the pages and then left there. It's a shame because there were SO MANY characters and worlds, and none of them stood out from any other. Some things just seemed to be slipped in randomly for style, I guess, like a bunch of chimpanzees or people wearing pink suits. For a book with so much quirkiness and imaginative elements, it was rather flat and bland.
June 7, 2018
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The premise of the story sounded really interesting to me – two young girls raised in the circus with amazing musical talents that become magical, it appealed to me in a number of ways which is why I accepted it for review. I love magic, I love Circus based stories and I love mysteries, we’re on for a winner, right!?
Sonja and Charlotte are twins, raised in a circus on the ‘Outskirts’ by Tatty – a lady covered from head to toe in tattoos. They have extraordinary musical talents that they perform in the ring but lately it’s started causing magical things to happen and the customers are getting freaked out. The girls must learn to control their powers or find somewhere else to live. The opening of the book was very exciting and powerful, it put you right into the moment and introduced you to the twins and I was encouraged. The writing style was a bit blunt – a lot of short sentences but I could get past that.
The twins hear about an audition for a famous music academy, and they decide it’s worth a try, even with the possibility of magical mishaps - and that’s when things go wrong, that night their talents get stolen, Tatty gets kidnapped and they end up on a journey to try and save themselves and their adoptive mother. Along the way they meet a host of characters and end up in a variety of different situations. However this is where the book went downhill for me, I found Sonja and Charlotte to be very annoying, Charlotte falls in love with every boy she meets, has no regard for anyone around her and basically ignores her twin, whilst Sonja complains about everything, whines that life isn’t fair and basically makes every situation ten times worse with her bad attitude. They were both very dislikeable characters and I found myself irritated by them and basically wanted to smack their heads together and tell them to grow up a bit. They didn’t really act like the twelve years they were supposed to be.
I also found myself getting confused with who everyone was, you meet so many characters, some that are only present for a few pages and then seem to disappear again but I was never really sure what their purpose was in the first place, and many of them have more than one name, it just got so confusing. Throughout the story they also travelled to a number of places and I found myself getting lost and very confused.
The twins meet a group of characters and they start to travel together to try and save ‘the key’ to the ‘Seven Edens’ (a concept that sounded really cool, like a whole other hidden world that is basically a paradise). Anyway, the team arrive at some sort of factory and the story started to get interesting, I found myself settling into the book again, there was a real edge of mystery and excitement, it was quite creepy but the imagery was great, I could picture all the children and the dark corridors and sinister people, I really found myself engaging with the story again, I started to read quicker again, and I actually wanted to know what would happen next, but that was over far too quickly and then they were out and back on the run again. I just found the whole thing very hard to follow and the writing style started to irritate me again, I wanted flowing sentences that would carry me through the story but I found them to be short and abrupt, very matter of fact and stilted. I just couldn’t get on with it. I found myself counting how many pages were left until the end, I just couldn’t get to grips with it.
I did like the introduction of Wolf-boy and his friend Moritz, they had some real personalities and added a bit of humour to the story. The villains were creepy and twisted just like villains should be, but I didn’t understand their motivation for what they were doing – they just seemed to be evil for the sake of it – at least with the Contessa anyway. With Katz you learn a bit more about his backstory which makes certain things make sense, but I just didn’t feel like I understood the purpose of it.
I also didn’t understand how Alexandria acted throughout it, without giving away any spoilers, her behaviour towards the twins did not match up with her feelings at the end, there was just no arc or development between the two situations and I wondered how anyone could act so coldly all those years if they were feeling something else. She was a mystery to me- although saying that, I loved her magical powers. She was a very cool woman and I did like her sassy attitude.
The book also has illustrations within of the characters, I can see the skill in the drawings but to be honest they kind of freaked me out a bit, they didn’t look quite human to me, and they didn’t add anything to the story, but some people may like them.
Overall I was disappointed with this book, I felt like it had so much potential but it left me feeling flat. There were moments that got me excited and carried me along but they were few and far between. There is a good baseline in there though but for me it didn’t reach it’s potential.
The premise of the story sounded really interesting to me – two young girls raised in the circus with amazing musical talents that become magical, it appealed to me in a number of ways which is why I accepted it for review. I love magic, I love Circus based stories and I love mysteries, we’re on for a winner, right!?
Sonja and Charlotte are twins, raised in a circus on the ‘Outskirts’ by Tatty – a lady covered from head to toe in tattoos. They have extraordinary musical talents that they perform in the ring but lately it’s started causing magical things to happen and the customers are getting freaked out. The girls must learn to control their powers or find somewhere else to live. The opening of the book was very exciting and powerful, it put you right into the moment and introduced you to the twins and I was encouraged. The writing style was a bit blunt – a lot of short sentences but I could get past that.
The twins hear about an audition for a famous music academy, and they decide it’s worth a try, even with the possibility of magical mishaps - and that’s when things go wrong, that night their talents get stolen, Tatty gets kidnapped and they end up on a journey to try and save themselves and their adoptive mother. Along the way they meet a host of characters and end up in a variety of different situations. However this is where the book went downhill for me, I found Sonja and Charlotte to be very annoying, Charlotte falls in love with every boy she meets, has no regard for anyone around her and basically ignores her twin, whilst Sonja complains about everything, whines that life isn’t fair and basically makes every situation ten times worse with her bad attitude. They were both very dislikeable characters and I found myself irritated by them and basically wanted to smack their heads together and tell them to grow up a bit. They didn’t really act like the twelve years they were supposed to be.
I also found myself getting confused with who everyone was, you meet so many characters, some that are only present for a few pages and then seem to disappear again but I was never really sure what their purpose was in the first place, and many of them have more than one name, it just got so confusing. Throughout the story they also travelled to a number of places and I found myself getting lost and very confused.
The twins meet a group of characters and they start to travel together to try and save ‘the key’ to the ‘Seven Edens’ (a concept that sounded really cool, like a whole other hidden world that is basically a paradise). Anyway, the team arrive at some sort of factory and the story started to get interesting, I found myself settling into the book again, there was a real edge of mystery and excitement, it was quite creepy but the imagery was great, I could picture all the children and the dark corridors and sinister people, I really found myself engaging with the story again, I started to read quicker again, and I actually wanted to know what would happen next, but that was over far too quickly and then they were out and back on the run again. I just found the whole thing very hard to follow and the writing style started to irritate me again, I wanted flowing sentences that would carry me through the story but I found them to be short and abrupt, very matter of fact and stilted. I just couldn’t get on with it. I found myself counting how many pages were left until the end, I just couldn’t get to grips with it.
I did like the introduction of Wolf-boy and his friend Moritz, they had some real personalities and added a bit of humour to the story. The villains were creepy and twisted just like villains should be, but I didn’t understand their motivation for what they were doing – they just seemed to be evil for the sake of it – at least with the Contessa anyway. With Katz you learn a bit more about his backstory which makes certain things make sense, but I just didn’t feel like I understood the purpose of it.
I also didn’t understand how Alexandria acted throughout it, without giving away any spoilers, her behaviour towards the twins did not match up with her feelings at the end, there was just no arc or development between the two situations and I wondered how anyone could act so coldly all those years if they were feeling something else. She was a mystery to me- although saying that, I loved her magical powers. She was a very cool woman and I did like her sassy attitude.
The book also has illustrations within of the characters, I can see the skill in the drawings but to be honest they kind of freaked me out a bit, they didn’t look quite human to me, and they didn’t add anything to the story, but some people may like them.
Overall I was disappointed with this book, I felt like it had so much potential but it left me feeling flat. There were moments that got me excited and carried me along but they were few and far between. There is a good baseline in there though but for me it didn’t reach it’s potential.
Want to read
July 24, 2019Lauren DeStefano herself recommended this to me years ago (when I was actually semi-active on Twitter) so one of these years I need to actually read this
January 14, 2016
I did not like this book. The twins were annoying and bratty. More so than I would expect 12 year olds to be (and I've taught middle school). Some of the events came out of left field. Wolf Boy is the only one not given a "real" name. A normal name is given to everyone else, but Wolf Boy gets Wolf Boy as his name...real creative considering he can shape shift into a wolf. There was no depth to the book. I couldn't get into the world of the Seven Edens. It had so much potential, but missed the mark time and again. I was really disappointed.
June 21, 2018
The Trilogy of Two, by Juman Malouf, is a YA fantasy adventure story. The protagonists are identical twins, Sonja and Charlotte, who are twelve years old (I would guess the target audience to be a similar reading age). The girls are musical prodigies who live and perform with a travelling circus. The world created within these pages is dystopian with magic and imagined creatures. The baddies have the upper hand and the twins will be key in fighting against their wicked plans for wider domination.
When the story opens the girls’ place in the circus is threatened by disruptions that occur when they perform. Their mother, a tattooed lady named Tatty, comforts them but will not explain this strange development. The girls are left unhappy and frustrated. The precocious pair are used to getting away with misdemeanours, such as illegal scavenging in the growing rubbish dumps outside the expanding and filthy cities. They wonder if they would be better leaving the circus and going to a School for the Gifted where they could find friends their own age and perhaps become revered musicians.
Another resident of the circus, Tell the Fortune Teller, suggests to the twins that the mysterious occurrences may be a result of magic inside them which they could one day learn to control. Before the girls can consider this further: a cat steals their talents; the circus is raided by Enforcers from the city; Tatty is kidnapped. Tell takes the girls to stay with old friends for their own safety. They discover that few of the people they have grown up around are as they were led to believe.
A great many people are introduced and the action jumps rapidly from place to place: through the Outskirts; to the city; and on to lands where creatures conjured from the author’s imagination reside. These are all evoked in rich and colourful prose although I struggled with the lack of fluidity. A great deal happens as eclectic peoples must be brought together to fight a new evil. To keep the various reveals secret, little is explained at the time – my reading pleasure frequently stalled.
The developing emotions of the twins are well portrayed with their desire to be together but also recognised as individuals. There are fledgling romances and the jealousies these arouse. The key story idea of why the children’s artistic talents are stolen is depressingly believable and rendered effectively.
I was about three quarters of the way through before my reading became effortless (this did not happen with the Mortal Engines series or the Fleabag Trilogy, young people’s fantasy fiction I have previously reviewed). This tale had some innovative underlying tropes and threads but too often failed to hold my attention.
There are illustrations throughout that guide the reader in understanding how the author perceives her characters. My overall impression of these is that they are otherworldly.
For children who enjoy fantasy adventures this is an original slant on the power of self belief and the perceived value of the arts. Impressed as I was with the individual ideas, their joined up realisation did not engage.
When the story opens the girls’ place in the circus is threatened by disruptions that occur when they perform. Their mother, a tattooed lady named Tatty, comforts them but will not explain this strange development. The girls are left unhappy and frustrated. The precocious pair are used to getting away with misdemeanours, such as illegal scavenging in the growing rubbish dumps outside the expanding and filthy cities. They wonder if they would be better leaving the circus and going to a School for the Gifted where they could find friends their own age and perhaps become revered musicians.
Another resident of the circus, Tell the Fortune Teller, suggests to the twins that the mysterious occurrences may be a result of magic inside them which they could one day learn to control. Before the girls can consider this further: a cat steals their talents; the circus is raided by Enforcers from the city; Tatty is kidnapped. Tell takes the girls to stay with old friends for their own safety. They discover that few of the people they have grown up around are as they were led to believe.
A great many people are introduced and the action jumps rapidly from place to place: through the Outskirts; to the city; and on to lands where creatures conjured from the author’s imagination reside. These are all evoked in rich and colourful prose although I struggled with the lack of fluidity. A great deal happens as eclectic peoples must be brought together to fight a new evil. To keep the various reveals secret, little is explained at the time – my reading pleasure frequently stalled.
The developing emotions of the twins are well portrayed with their desire to be together but also recognised as individuals. There are fledgling romances and the jealousies these arouse. The key story idea of why the children’s artistic talents are stolen is depressingly believable and rendered effectively.
I was about three quarters of the way through before my reading became effortless (this did not happen with the Mortal Engines series or the Fleabag Trilogy, young people’s fantasy fiction I have previously reviewed). This tale had some innovative underlying tropes and threads but too often failed to hold my attention.
There are illustrations throughout that guide the reader in understanding how the author perceives her characters. My overall impression of these is that they are otherworldly.
For children who enjoy fantasy adventures this is an original slant on the power of self belief and the perceived value of the arts. Impressed as I was with the individual ideas, their joined up realisation did not engage.
November 2, 2018
I do not normally read juvenile literature, but I was drawn to this one because of the artwork and basic premise of twins with magical powers who perform and live in a circus. The artwork is gorgeous and reminds me of the advertisment posters for sideshow acts back in the early days. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the rest of the book.
(Note: an extra star is awarded for the fact that this is not a genre I generally enjoy reading.)
First off, a few passages in this book rubbed me the wrong way, given recent developments such as the #MeToo movement. The protagonists are prepubescent twelve year old girls. Charlotte falls in love with the first boy who is nice to her. Then she falls in love with another much older boy and all but forgets about the first boy. There is a sequence in which teenagers appear to get either drunk or high on some sort of intoxicating flower petals, and it is alluded that some went off to have sex. One character, Wolf Boy actually, is ticked off because he is prevented from making out with a random girl because of the twins' quarrel. Also, Charlotte is prevented from being alone with her older boyfriend by the adults watching over them, and is quite put out about it. Then there's Sonja and Wolf Boy (who is also a few years older), who have interactions that would be more appropriate for the flirting passages of a romance novel. For instance, in the final chapter, he kisses her while she is strapped to a gurney. She does not give consent and is literally unable to stop him. She does slap him when he finally unties her, but almost immediately regrets it and kisses him later.
Then there is this passage from earlier in Book Two:
Wolf Boy grabbed Sonja's hand.
"Don't touch me."
"Why not?"
"Because I told you not to."
Wolf Boy stared at Sonja. "How about this?" He wrapped his arm around her waist and squeezed tight.
Sonja slapped him and wriggled."Let me go!"
Wolf Boy laughed and ducked, but held on.
"You act like an animal."
"Well, I am an animal." Wolf Boy grinned.
"I hate you."
"The feeling's mutual."
Now I realize such passages are common in romance books, but this is a fantasy book written for grade school readers. What sort of message is this sending? These are not depictions of healthy relationships in older couples, let alone children too young to date. While I don't believe in censorship, I do feel that if my daughter were to one day read this novel, we would definitely have a discussion as to why this behavior is not appropriate and why Wolf Boy was not romantic so much as aggressive and wrong to do the things he did with Sonja.
Lastly, what I thought was a book about magical powers and the circus turned out to be a fantasy story involving multiple magical realms with various mythical creatures and an epic battle to defend them from cartoonishly stereotyped villians. There was also a rather predictable drama sidestory involving the twins and their birth mother. They leave the circus behind by the end of Book One, and take off on this strange adventure in a cliche ridden universe. All in all, I was fairly disappointed in everything but the artwork.
(Note: an extra star is awarded for the fact that this is not a genre I generally enjoy reading.)
First off, a few passages in this book rubbed me the wrong way, given recent developments such as the #MeToo movement. The protagonists are prepubescent twelve year old girls. Charlotte falls in love with the first boy who is nice to her. Then she falls in love with another much older boy and all but forgets about the first boy. There is a sequence in which teenagers appear to get either drunk or high on some sort of intoxicating flower petals, and it is alluded that some went off to have sex. One character, Wolf Boy actually, is ticked off because he is prevented from making out with a random girl because of the twins' quarrel. Also, Charlotte is prevented from being alone with her older boyfriend by the adults watching over them, and is quite put out about it. Then there's Sonja and Wolf Boy (who is also a few years older), who have interactions that would be more appropriate for the flirting passages of a romance novel. For instance, in the final chapter, he kisses her while she is strapped to a gurney. She does not give consent and is literally unable to stop him. She does slap him when he finally unties her, but almost immediately regrets it and kisses him later.
Then there is this passage from earlier in Book Two:
Wolf Boy grabbed Sonja's hand.
"Don't touch me."
"Why not?"
"Because I told you not to."
Wolf Boy stared at Sonja. "How about this?" He wrapped his arm around her waist and squeezed tight.
Sonja slapped him and wriggled."Let me go!"
Wolf Boy laughed and ducked, but held on.
"You act like an animal."
"Well, I am an animal." Wolf Boy grinned.
"I hate you."
"The feeling's mutual."
Now I realize such passages are common in romance books, but this is a fantasy book written for grade school readers. What sort of message is this sending? These are not depictions of healthy relationships in older couples, let alone children too young to date. While I don't believe in censorship, I do feel that if my daughter were to one day read this novel, we would definitely have a discussion as to why this behavior is not appropriate and why Wolf Boy was not romantic so much as aggressive and wrong to do the things he did with Sonja.
Lastly, what I thought was a book about magical powers and the circus turned out to be a fantasy story involving multiple magical realms with various mythical creatures and an epic battle to defend them from cartoonishly stereotyped villians. There was also a rather predictable drama sidestory involving the twins and their birth mother. They leave the circus behind by the end of Book One, and take off on this strange adventure in a cliche ridden universe. All in all, I was fairly disappointed in everything but the artwork.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 9, 2017
I attempted reading this twice. The first time, I stopped around 70 pages because I wasn't feeling the story. I took a break and eventually got back to it.
I read it quite quickly. It's a Middle Grade book and light.
However, it did not appease me.
I get it, millions of fantasy books are out there, but still you find some that are really great. This wasn't. The author does have imagination, but I was not sold by any of the points.
Let's break it down further:
The characters are the most annoying characters you can ever find. They're whiny, annoying, and very useless. The twins keep on hating one another and they don't really help each other. They just...whine! As for the secondary characters, they just keep popping up out of nowhere and suddenly you have friends and betrayals and things happening just like that.
The writing and the plot combined were the weakest points, in my opinion. The phrase, "show don't tell", with regards to writing, was not applicable here at all. We are just told that events X, Y, Z, are happening. And most of the time I wasn't even interested to follow up with the chain of events. They just happened, no reason, nothing. And then there's the dialogue. It is the most shallow and bratty dialogue ever.
Finally, the romance. I don't understand, why MUST 12 year old girls be involved in romance? Can't children just enjoy being children? Why must they always be forced into unnecessary romance?
I really don't recommend this book. If you are looking for Middle Grade books, you should read Wonder by R.J. Palacio or Liesel and Po by Lauren Oliver or Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi.
I read it quite quickly. It's a Middle Grade book and light.
However, it did not appease me.
I get it, millions of fantasy books are out there, but still you find some that are really great. This wasn't. The author does have imagination, but I was not sold by any of the points.
Let's break it down further:
The characters are the most annoying characters you can ever find. They're whiny, annoying, and very useless. The twins keep on hating one another and they don't really help each other. They just...whine! As for the secondary characters, they just keep popping up out of nowhere and suddenly you have friends and betrayals and things happening just like that.
The writing and the plot combined were the weakest points, in my opinion. The phrase, "show don't tell", with regards to writing, was not applicable here at all. We are just told that events X, Y, Z, are happening. And most of the time I wasn't even interested to follow up with the chain of events. They just happened, no reason, nothing. And then there's the dialogue. It is the most shallow and bratty dialogue ever.
Finally, the romance. I don't understand, why MUST 12 year old girls be involved in romance? Can't children just enjoy being children? Why must they always be forced into unnecessary romance?
I really don't recommend this book. If you are looking for Middle Grade books, you should read Wonder by R.J. Palacio or Liesel and Po by Lauren Oliver or Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi.
June 9, 2018
While I wouldn't say Juman Malouf's first book here is an instant classic like say, Harry Potter, it is a good first go at a young adult fantasy book.
She develops a rather unique and interesting fantasy world. It has a vibe I wouldn't quite call steampunk, but it does the thing where it borrows elements from earlier in history, then moves them forward in time to an interesting result. Plus there are interesting fantasy characters and beings to enjoy.
The characters are mostly pretty interesting. However, Sonja and Charlotte, the main characters who are twins can be a little too frustrating sometime. I get that they are 12, and lead a life that didn't prepare them for all the crazy stressful things that are happening to them, but sometimes I just wanted to tell them to shut up and deal with it. That is not to say I hated them. I just wish at times it was dialed back a notch or two.
There are a fair amount of black and white illustrations by the author. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of the art style, but I don't feel like they detracted any from the experience.
Ultimately, while a few aspects reminded me of other YA Fantasy (The Golden Compass for example) this generally remained a fairly original and enjoyable book. While it wouldn't be the first book of it's genre I'd suggest, I do think I'd suggest it to fans of this type of book.
She develops a rather unique and interesting fantasy world. It has a vibe I wouldn't quite call steampunk, but it does the thing where it borrows elements from earlier in history, then moves them forward in time to an interesting result. Plus there are interesting fantasy characters and beings to enjoy.
The characters are mostly pretty interesting. However, Sonja and Charlotte, the main characters who are twins can be a little too frustrating sometime. I get that they are 12, and lead a life that didn't prepare them for all the crazy stressful things that are happening to them, but sometimes I just wanted to tell them to shut up and deal with it. That is not to say I hated them. I just wish at times it was dialed back a notch or two.
There are a fair amount of black and white illustrations by the author. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of the art style, but I don't feel like they detracted any from the experience.
Ultimately, while a few aspects reminded me of other YA Fantasy (The Golden Compass for example) this generally remained a fairly original and enjoyable book. While it wouldn't be the first book of it's genre I'd suggest, I do think I'd suggest it to fans of this type of book.
July 10, 2018
I don't normally read children's books aimed as young as this (I'd estimate it for late primary school/ early secondary school 10-12 year olds), but the premise sounded intriguing. The Trilogy of Two is full of interesting ideas and will probably appeal to many children, although it contains many tropes and cliches. For twelve-and-a-half, the protagonists - Sonja and Charlotte - seem quite young, although as they rarely interact with other children this is probably appropriate (and why the book would appeal to younger readers). In some ways, this book reminded me of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, but slightly younger and with a more confused plot.
Personally, I think some of the ideas were a bit rushed in execution - the premise was excellent but it perhaps read more like a late draft of a book than the final copy. But I do think many children are likely to enjoy it.
Personally, I think some of the ideas were a bit rushed in execution - the premise was excellent but it perhaps read more like a late draft of a book than the final copy. But I do think many children are likely to enjoy it.
October 8, 2024
I wanted to DNF this so many times but idk why i pulled through.
What was that writing pls 😭 i wrote better when i was in 8th grade.
It was just weird and not it
What was that writing pls 😭 i wrote better when i was in 8th grade.
It was just weird and not it
December 29, 2021
This is another book where I don't remember specifics. Unfortunately, I also lost my notes when I switched phones, so I can't even access those.
What I do remember of this book is that it was very... Odd. Definitely very original, at least! One major downside to this book was the instalove that occurred between one of the twins (a preteen) and an older teenager. I hate instalove in the best scenarios, but this one just drove me up the wall. I will say there were relationships that I enjoyed though, especially between the twins and their found family!
Overall, this was just a very quirky book that I wasn't the biggest fan of. It's definitely worth a try if you're looking for something unique with a very pretty cover!
What I do remember of this book is that it was very... Odd. Definitely very original, at least! One major downside to this book was the instalove that occurred between one of the twins (a preteen) and an older teenager. I hate instalove in the best scenarios, but this one just drove me up the wall. I will say there were relationships that I enjoyed though, especially between the twins and their found family!
Overall, this was just a very quirky book that I wasn't the biggest fan of. It's definitely worth a try if you're looking for something unique with a very pretty cover!
May 22, 2020
Charlotte and Sonja are identical twins born on Halloween, but are soon abandoned by their biological parents. Wrapped in a shawl and tucked inside a pail, with only a brief note and locket for explanation, they are left on the doorstep of Tatty Tatters, the Tattooed Lady of the local circus.
Within a few short years, it becomes evident that both Charlotte and Sonja are musical prodigies. They join the performing crew of the circus, adjusting to life on the traveling show circuit. But as the girls get into their tween years, more and more oddball things start happening at their shows --- moments of levitation (either the performers or the audience ... or both!), candles lighting themselves, storms being summoned. Word gets out and before long the sisters have Enforcers (police) trying to sniff out their whereabouts.
Not wanting to further endanger their circus family, the twins decide to audition for a full ride scholarship at a nearby School for the Gifted. Maybe success in school can help them rise to a safer, more stable life away from the world of Outskirters (crime-heavy lands of the homeless) and Scrummagers (orphans, often trying to survive through acts of petty crime). Little do they know, this only causes more of the exact trouble they are trying to avoid, as all the Gifted schools in the area are all funded by the same "Richer" (wealthy citizen), Kats von Stralen. Kats has secretly been holding these scholarship "auditions" to lure in all the local gifted youth, only to later steal / extract the magic from their beings, using a unique technique involving cats.
*Why yes, there is a lot of on-the-nose word play in this novel.... but ehh, the eye can bypass a lot of it. It was quiet enough, I personally didn't find it all that problematic or distracting....even gave it a smirk here and there!
Kats manages to extract the power out of the twins, which naturally devastates them, but Charlotte remains concerned about her new friend & fellow talented musician, Jack Cross, whom she met at the school audition. Can she get to him before Kats does?
The twins having their magic stolen is only the start of their troubles, if you can believe it! They also discover that there is magic woven into Tatty's full body tattoos... and then suddenly she is kidnapped! The journey to save their adoptive mother takes Charlotte and Sonja through a parallel universe known as The Seven Edens, all the while dodging Enforcers on their trail. They make a stop-off in The Forlorn Forest, a land of shapeshifters (aka Changelings), before heading on to The Land Where Plants Reign where they are to meet up with Uncle Tell (the circus fortune teller), who is optimistic about a plan he has to set things right again.
There's an almost frenzied quality to the pace of the writing that keeps these pages moving at a good clip. I will say, it doesn't always have the classic feel of an innocent middle grade read. There is a fair amount of violence within the plot, with quite a few animals getting hurt or even killed, but as far as the description of these scenes go, nothing is really overly gruesome in nature. But several of the adult characters in the story appear to be habitual smokers, and at times we even have Kats tapping into his snuff box or snorting vials of black powder. So, any concerned parents out there with established parameters for what you want your kid reading, give this a precursory read if you feel so inclined.
Malouf has a definite talent for developing visual distinction among all these different environments the twins travel through --- the dirty, littered streets where Outskirters congregate; the smoky, brightly lit, tented circus world; the lush, green, rain-glistened forests across Seven Edens --- it was great! I was even hoping for a just a little more in-depth world building! (But who knows, maybe there will be a sequel one day.)
In between all the magic building and adventure story aspects, there's this more hushed side plot of the sisters learning (sometimes painfully) to test their metaphorical wings and try out the world independent of each other. Charlotte feels the stronger pull to learn who she is outside of her identity as a twin, but Sonja is more reluctant to be exposed to anything that might threaten to break up the duo. Without her sister or her music around her, Sonja feels incredibly lost in the world.
At times it even felt like there was a little underlying ecological-type story running in the background. We have the classic "underdog" (here, being the twins, the Changelings of Seven Edens, the circus crew) taking on "the big corporation" (here, mainly in the form of Contessa, the incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful mother of Kats. Contessa wants to use the magic Kats has been harvesting from gifted children to funnel into a plot to make all the world one uniform, steel-covered, money-making machine that won't hesitate to "squash any rebellion."
This being her debut novel, Juman Malouf shows serious promise as a highly entertaining MG / YA fantasy writer! As evil as Kats was through most of this book, she actually had me momentarily feeling a little sad for the abandoned little boy in Kats' soul.
Within a few short years, it becomes evident that both Charlotte and Sonja are musical prodigies. They join the performing crew of the circus, adjusting to life on the traveling show circuit. But as the girls get into their tween years, more and more oddball things start happening at their shows --- moments of levitation (either the performers or the audience ... or both!), candles lighting themselves, storms being summoned. Word gets out and before long the sisters have Enforcers (police) trying to sniff out their whereabouts.
Not wanting to further endanger their circus family, the twins decide to audition for a full ride scholarship at a nearby School for the Gifted. Maybe success in school can help them rise to a safer, more stable life away from the world of Outskirters (crime-heavy lands of the homeless) and Scrummagers (orphans, often trying to survive through acts of petty crime). Little do they know, this only causes more of the exact trouble they are trying to avoid, as all the Gifted schools in the area are all funded by the same "Richer" (wealthy citizen), Kats von Stralen. Kats has secretly been holding these scholarship "auditions" to lure in all the local gifted youth, only to later steal / extract the magic from their beings, using a unique technique involving cats.
*Why yes, there is a lot of on-the-nose word play in this novel.... but ehh, the eye can bypass a lot of it. It was quiet enough, I personally didn't find it all that problematic or distracting....even gave it a smirk here and there!
Kats manages to extract the power out of the twins, which naturally devastates them, but Charlotte remains concerned about her new friend & fellow talented musician, Jack Cross, whom she met at the school audition. Can she get to him before Kats does?
The twins having their magic stolen is only the start of their troubles, if you can believe it! They also discover that there is magic woven into Tatty's full body tattoos... and then suddenly she is kidnapped! The journey to save their adoptive mother takes Charlotte and Sonja through a parallel universe known as The Seven Edens, all the while dodging Enforcers on their trail. They make a stop-off in The Forlorn Forest, a land of shapeshifters (aka Changelings), before heading on to The Land Where Plants Reign where they are to meet up with Uncle Tell (the circus fortune teller), who is optimistic about a plan he has to set things right again.
There's an almost frenzied quality to the pace of the writing that keeps these pages moving at a good clip. I will say, it doesn't always have the classic feel of an innocent middle grade read. There is a fair amount of violence within the plot, with quite a few animals getting hurt or even killed, but as far as the description of these scenes go, nothing is really overly gruesome in nature. But several of the adult characters in the story appear to be habitual smokers, and at times we even have Kats tapping into his snuff box or snorting vials of black powder. So, any concerned parents out there with established parameters for what you want your kid reading, give this a precursory read if you feel so inclined.
Malouf has a definite talent for developing visual distinction among all these different environments the twins travel through --- the dirty, littered streets where Outskirters congregate; the smoky, brightly lit, tented circus world; the lush, green, rain-glistened forests across Seven Edens --- it was great! I was even hoping for a just a little more in-depth world building! (But who knows, maybe there will be a sequel one day.)
In between all the magic building and adventure story aspects, there's this more hushed side plot of the sisters learning (sometimes painfully) to test their metaphorical wings and try out the world independent of each other. Charlotte feels the stronger pull to learn who she is outside of her identity as a twin, but Sonja is more reluctant to be exposed to anything that might threaten to break up the duo. Without her sister or her music around her, Sonja feels incredibly lost in the world.
At times it even felt like there was a little underlying ecological-type story running in the background. We have the classic "underdog" (here, being the twins, the Changelings of Seven Edens, the circus crew) taking on "the big corporation" (here, mainly in the form of Contessa, the incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful mother of Kats. Contessa wants to use the magic Kats has been harvesting from gifted children to funnel into a plot to make all the world one uniform, steel-covered, money-making machine that won't hesitate to "squash any rebellion."
This being her debut novel, Juman Malouf shows serious promise as a highly entertaining MG / YA fantasy writer! As evil as Kats was through most of this book, she actually had me momentarily feeling a little sad for the abandoned little boy in Kats' soul.
August 31, 2016
Check out my review here: https://kellyfurgaltoye.wordpress.com...
December 16, 2018
3.5 stars!
January 5, 2022
(Originally reviewed in 2016.)
Rating this novel was not easy.
I'm of several dozen minds about The Trilogy of Two, and each mind has formed its own opinion and star rating. I decided to average them all out into three.
Below are spoilers and a breakdown of a book that I both liked and thought needed serious editing--and yet I still am glad it wasn't edited. OH IT'S COMPLICATED.
Overview: So this is actually a dystopian novel. It is also a fantasy novel two shades away from high fantasy. It is also an urban fantasy. It is a quest story with a prophecy and amulets and hidden worlds. It is also... it is a lot of things. It is everything. And for a debut to buck or use trends in its own damn way, I have to say... I admire it for that.
Basically, the story follows identical twins Sonja and Charlotte, who at infancy are left at the doorstep of a circus's tattooed lady. In this crazy who-knows-what-time-period-it-might-be world, the circus travels the Outskirts, and cities are all walled and barred and stretch miles into the sky and into the earth. The twins have lately been causing a ruckus whenever they play their music during the show. Things levitate and they can't control it. This gets the attention of the police-like Enforcers, and soon mysterious Kats von Stralen steals the twins' magic and Talents, then kidnaps their mother.
This kidnapping reveals that the worlds tattooed on her body, the Seven Edens, do in fact exist and that von Stralen (working for the evil Contessa, who wants to turn the world into one giant city) is searching for the source of all magic to help build an army of powerful, magical beasts.
Along with many, many other people, Sonja and Charlotte descend into the Seven Edens to help get their mother back. Among other things. It's very difficult to summarize this story.
The World ★★★★ Okay, for the sheer scope of Malouf's imagination, I can't give it a low star. For the readers this is aimed towards, I think it will hold up. I can imagine being nine or ten and loving the hell out of this universe. As an adult... it just kind of feels like she put in every ingredient imaginable and then some more, and she didn't stop to think what was relevant or necessary for a tight story. A tight story, this is not. But what she came up with was certainly engaging enough that I was never bored.
The Writing ★★ I mean, it reads like very simple middle grade. There is nothing flowery, groundbreaking, offensive, or critically terrible about the actual use of words. It could have used a few more passes with an editor, as the dialogue was often very cliched and there were some weird grammatical ticks that sometimes made sentences confusing or clunky. She rarely used 'said', and characters often reacted in ways that were very simple (ie, beaming in the middle of a dangerous situation because someone good showed up). Additionally, Malouf relied on telling us everything, rather than showing us. I'm not sure how long she has been writing, so she may improve over time.
The Characters ★★ There were so many characters. Thankfully I was able to keep them straight, but no one felt really strong. Personalities and dialogue managed to be slightly different (apart from the irritating way the Scrummager kids spoke), but it took me a long time to figure out each twin's personality (I kept assuming one thing, then it seemed to change). And, as mentioned above, the use of cliched speech meant that characters often said the same thing in the same situation. Not helpful when you're juggling so much world-building.
Speaking of the twins, they were quite annoying. Thankfully they were also often called out for being annoying, but that doesn't make them any less annoying. I don't need my protagonists to be the most personable people in the world, but bratty is a difficult quality to bond with.
And Charlotte's boy-crazy behavior at age twelve was... a little disconcerting. She was ready to abandon her sister for someone she met that day. In the middle of trying to rescue her mother. After losing everything she ever knew. If she had been older, maybe I could take it. But the twins were described as inseparable. Holding hands when they slept. Yelling 'porcupine' so they would hug in any situation.
We also need to talk about the naming system in this universe. Sometimes people had quite individual names (Charlotte, Sonja, Alexandria, Arthur, Mortiz, Edgar, Ansel, Bea, etc.), and sometimes they were things like, I'm not kidding, Wolf Boy (a character who can change into a wolf) or Kats (a man who uses cats like minions) or Tatty Tatters (technically Tabitha Tatters, the tattooed woman). And you also get characters like the Miniature Woman and the Fat Lady.
Locations and terms are all very literal, as well, which I ended up coming to enjoy for the pure simplicity of it in an otherwise crazy world. They were like little breaths of straightforward air.
The Plot: ★★ At its core, it's simple. It's a quest to save their mother and therefore the world. It's also somewhat about identity and individuality.
It's laden with everything you need to make a predictable outcome. And it's certainly not trying to be challenging. I mean, you not only have a prophecy (which comes in a bit later), you also have magical amulets and hidden worlds.
But it's bogged down with so many little side-trips and anecdotes and actions that do or do not come back into play later. You could throw out probably half the book and tell the same story. As I said above, a tight plot this isn't.
The romance was just unnecessary. If it were more comedic, okay, but the fact that Malouf uses the "I hate this boy therefore that means I love him duh" trope on Sonja, and Charlotte falls instantly in love with two different male characters (I'm not sure the second one was her age at all), did nothing for me. And certainly did nothing for the plot. There was no romance, really. We're just told that Charlotte loves this boy, then that one, and that Sonja must like Wolf Boy because... someone said she must like Wolf Boy? I don't know. Silly.
And we're given some Big Reveals, which some people may have seen coming--though if you were like me, you probably assumed we'd be introduced to new characters to fulfill the mystery of the girls' parentage, since new people popped up on every page.
The Illustrations: ★★ Er. Okay, so, I'm a working illustrator. It's what I do professionally. I go out of my way to buy illustrated novels because that's what I love.
Clearly, some people enjoyed Malouf's illustrations. Others, like the Kirkus review, described them as technically sound, but cold. And I agree with that assessment. The reason for that is, well, she never illustrates a single scene. Never a moment of action. Not even a setting. She only illustrates characters or objects (and the twins are only illustrated twice! Including the illustration used on the cover).
In fact, during the last third of the book, where action picks up, the illustrations sort of disappear for a while.
And that's fine, but it made the illustrations feel kind of arbitrary. I mean, we don't all want to/can't all be Brian Selznick or Jim Kay or Carson Ellis, but good use of illustration in long-form stories can save a mediocre book. But mediocre use of illustration just feels like a waste. Why be illustrated at all?
(Her style isn't really to my taste. The cover illustration is the one piece I like.)
So, if you've actually made it this far, you'll see it's mostly a two star book. The only reason I bumped it up was because Malouf bucked so many trends and seemingly did her own thing. And that thing was a fictional universe pretty ripe with stuff. So it rises above a lot of contemporary MG fantasy/dystopia for that reason alone.
I'd recommend reading it just so you can see the sheer craziness within.
Rating this novel was not easy.
I'm of several dozen minds about The Trilogy of Two, and each mind has formed its own opinion and star rating. I decided to average them all out into three.
Below are spoilers and a breakdown of a book that I both liked and thought needed serious editing--and yet I still am glad it wasn't edited. OH IT'S COMPLICATED.
Overview: So this is actually a dystopian novel. It is also a fantasy novel two shades away from high fantasy. It is also an urban fantasy. It is a quest story with a prophecy and amulets and hidden worlds. It is also... it is a lot of things. It is everything. And for a debut to buck or use trends in its own damn way, I have to say... I admire it for that.
Basically, the story follows identical twins Sonja and Charlotte, who at infancy are left at the doorstep of a circus's tattooed lady. In this crazy who-knows-what-time-period-it-might-be world, the circus travels the Outskirts, and cities are all walled and barred and stretch miles into the sky and into the earth. The twins have lately been causing a ruckus whenever they play their music during the show. Things levitate and they can't control it. This gets the attention of the police-like Enforcers, and soon mysterious Kats von Stralen steals the twins' magic and Talents, then kidnaps their mother.
This kidnapping reveals that the worlds tattooed on her body, the Seven Edens, do in fact exist and that von Stralen (working for the evil Contessa, who wants to turn the world into one giant city) is searching for the source of all magic to help build an army of powerful, magical beasts.
Along with many, many other people, Sonja and Charlotte descend into the Seven Edens to help get their mother back. Among other things. It's very difficult to summarize this story.
The World ★★★★ Okay, for the sheer scope of Malouf's imagination, I can't give it a low star. For the readers this is aimed towards, I think it will hold up. I can imagine being nine or ten and loving the hell out of this universe. As an adult... it just kind of feels like she put in every ingredient imaginable and then some more, and she didn't stop to think what was relevant or necessary for a tight story. A tight story, this is not. But what she came up with was certainly engaging enough that I was never bored.
The Writing ★★ I mean, it reads like very simple middle grade. There is nothing flowery, groundbreaking, offensive, or critically terrible about the actual use of words. It could have used a few more passes with an editor, as the dialogue was often very cliched and there were some weird grammatical ticks that sometimes made sentences confusing or clunky. She rarely used 'said', and characters often reacted in ways that were very simple (ie, beaming in the middle of a dangerous situation because someone good showed up). Additionally, Malouf relied on telling us everything, rather than showing us. I'm not sure how long she has been writing, so she may improve over time.
The Characters ★★ There were so many characters. Thankfully I was able to keep them straight, but no one felt really strong. Personalities and dialogue managed to be slightly different (apart from the irritating way the Scrummager kids spoke), but it took me a long time to figure out each twin's personality (I kept assuming one thing, then it seemed to change). And, as mentioned above, the use of cliched speech meant that characters often said the same thing in the same situation. Not helpful when you're juggling so much world-building.
Speaking of the twins, they were quite annoying. Thankfully they were also often called out for being annoying, but that doesn't make them any less annoying. I don't need my protagonists to be the most personable people in the world, but bratty is a difficult quality to bond with.
And Charlotte's boy-crazy behavior at age twelve was... a little disconcerting. She was ready to abandon her sister for someone she met that day. In the middle of trying to rescue her mother. After losing everything she ever knew. If she had been older, maybe I could take it. But the twins were described as inseparable. Holding hands when they slept. Yelling 'porcupine' so they would hug in any situation.
We also need to talk about the naming system in this universe. Sometimes people had quite individual names (Charlotte, Sonja, Alexandria, Arthur, Mortiz, Edgar, Ansel, Bea, etc.), and sometimes they were things like, I'm not kidding, Wolf Boy (a character who can change into a wolf) or Kats (a man who uses cats like minions) or Tatty Tatters (technically Tabitha Tatters, the tattooed woman). And you also get characters like the Miniature Woman and the Fat Lady.
Locations and terms are all very literal, as well, which I ended up coming to enjoy for the pure simplicity of it in an otherwise crazy world. They were like little breaths of straightforward air.
The Plot: ★★ At its core, it's simple. It's a quest to save their mother and therefore the world. It's also somewhat about identity and individuality.
It's laden with everything you need to make a predictable outcome. And it's certainly not trying to be challenging. I mean, you not only have a prophecy (which comes in a bit later), you also have magical amulets and hidden worlds.
But it's bogged down with so many little side-trips and anecdotes and actions that do or do not come back into play later. You could throw out probably half the book and tell the same story. As I said above, a tight plot this isn't.
The romance was just unnecessary. If it were more comedic, okay, but the fact that Malouf uses the "I hate this boy therefore that means I love him duh" trope on Sonja, and Charlotte falls instantly in love with two different male characters (I'm not sure the second one was her age at all), did nothing for me. And certainly did nothing for the plot. There was no romance, really. We're just told that Charlotte loves this boy, then that one, and that Sonja must like Wolf Boy because... someone said she must like Wolf Boy? I don't know. Silly.
And we're given some Big Reveals, which some people may have seen coming--though if you were like me, you probably assumed we'd be introduced to new characters to fulfill the mystery of the girls' parentage, since new people popped up on every page.
The Illustrations: ★★ Er. Okay, so, I'm a working illustrator. It's what I do professionally. I go out of my way to buy illustrated novels because that's what I love.
Clearly, some people enjoyed Malouf's illustrations. Others, like the Kirkus review, described them as technically sound, but cold. And I agree with that assessment. The reason for that is, well, she never illustrates a single scene. Never a moment of action. Not even a setting. She only illustrates characters or objects (and the twins are only illustrated twice! Including the illustration used on the cover).
In fact, during the last third of the book, where action picks up, the illustrations sort of disappear for a while.
And that's fine, but it made the illustrations feel kind of arbitrary. I mean, we don't all want to/can't all be Brian Selznick or Jim Kay or Carson Ellis, but good use of illustration in long-form stories can save a mediocre book. But mediocre use of illustration just feels like a waste. Why be illustrated at all?
(Her style isn't really to my taste. The cover illustration is the one piece I like.)
So, if you've actually made it this far, you'll see it's mostly a two star book. The only reason I bumped it up was because Malouf bucked so many trends and seemingly did her own thing. And that thing was a fictional universe pretty ripe with stuff. So it rises above a lot of contemporary MG fantasy/dystopia for that reason alone.
I'd recommend reading it just so you can see the sheer craziness within.
August 16, 2022
this book started really good. the illustrations fit the vibe well, even if they're just character designs that never show scenes (though i would have liked them to actually show the scenes. i think they added a little to the story by virtue of existing, but they could have been so much cooler if we saw action! like things floating around the twins as they played in the beginning, the characters riding the boat by the old library, charlotte playing the piano and destroying kats, etc etc!), and there are a lot of cool ideas in the setting and characters as well. but it didn't feel like said cool ideas ever got any depth. i wanted a chapters-long lore dump. maybe all the worldbuilding made perfect sense to the juman malouf as she wrote it but i wanted more details as i read.
i did not like charlotte. her constant crushes were annoying and rather instalovey (if she was always having crushes but they weren't always reciprocated, maybe it would be less annoying (like mabel in gravity falls!) but every boy she fell in "love" with always liked her back.) not to mention that she is 12 i dont think she needs so much romantic drama. and sonja was much less annoying but i did not like everyone insisting that she liked wolf boy (like when the beetles said "your hands will touch for many years to come"). it reminded me of when people see a boy bullying a girl and they're like "ooh, that means he likes you!!!!" no it doesn't! maybe sometimes it does but i think generally kids are just mean to each other.
additionally, about charlotte and sonja -- it seems like the whole story happens around them. they're supposed to be the main characters, but they don't really do anything until the very end, besides just follow around the useful side characters and getting in annoying fights with each other.
i also liked the vibe of the cities & outskirts much better than the vibe of the seven edens. i think a dreary evil city is always a more interesting, fun setting than a paradise and i wish we'd gotten more time in that side of the world.
speaking of which..........how are they intertwined. like, for example, wolf boy and moritz are changelings, so presumably they would be from the seven edens, but they were scrummagers. and . like were they all just put in the cities with magical blood? or do these magical species get randomly born to normal humans..? i don't really understand. this is something i wanted more explanation for.
to end, this was ok. the number of identites revealed in the last 20 pages rather reminded me of the lantern's ember. but the vibes of the circus were cool. the main characters were annoying, but the world had a lot of imagination put into it. etc.
i did not like charlotte. her constant crushes were annoying and rather instalovey (if she was always having crushes but they weren't always reciprocated, maybe it would be less annoying (like mabel in gravity falls!) but every boy she fell in "love" with always liked her back.) not to mention that she is 12 i dont think she needs so much romantic drama. and sonja was much less annoying but i did not like everyone insisting that she liked wolf boy (like when the beetles said "your hands will touch for many years to come"). it reminded me of when people see a boy bullying a girl and they're like "ooh, that means he likes you!!!!" no it doesn't! maybe sometimes it does but i think generally kids are just mean to each other.
additionally, about charlotte and sonja -- it seems like the whole story happens around them. they're supposed to be the main characters, but they don't really do anything until the very end, besides just follow around the useful side characters and getting in annoying fights with each other.
i also liked the vibe of the cities & outskirts much better than the vibe of the seven edens. i think a dreary evil city is always a more interesting, fun setting than a paradise and i wish we'd gotten more time in that side of the world.
speaking of which..........how are they intertwined. like, for example, wolf boy and moritz are changelings, so presumably they would be from the seven edens, but they were scrummagers. and . like were they all just put in the cities with magical blood? or do these magical species get randomly born to normal humans..? i don't really understand. this is something i wanted more explanation for.
to end, this was ok. the number of identites revealed in the last 20 pages rather reminded me of the lantern's ember. but the vibes of the circus were cool. the main characters were annoying, but the world had a lot of imagination put into it. etc.
August 14, 2021
This book felt like a dream.
Not in the abstract way, but, like, in the “where the heck did this train of thought come from?” way.
Like I swear parts of this book were legit in dreams I had in middle school. The city and the factory, for sure. And they were the kind of dreams I woke up from and thought “wow, I should write a book about this” but then gave up on the next morning.
Thankfully, Juman Malouf did the work for me, and created The Trilogy of Two.
My favorite parts of the book were the summary on the inside cover and the prologue. And I mean that genuinely. The prologue was actually so beautiful, and unique, and intriguing. And it seemed like such a unique voice and style.
Unfortunately, the rest of the book felt awfully “meh” compared to it.
It wasn’t bad at all. I didn’t find the skipping around too confusing. It felt like it could be shelved with classic, classic fantasy, right next to Wonderland, Narnia, and Oz. However, for me, it just lacked that extra special oomph. All the ingredients were there, I think it was just the execution. For some reason, it just didn’t click with me.
It was a perfectly decent read, but other than the idea of the rainy city, nothing really stood out. Maybe the concepts did, but the characters didn’t, and that’s where it fell flat.
The climax was surprisingly intense, but I didn’t follow the build up enough for it to really have an impact. Again, between the unique concept and voice, and unarguably beautiful illustrations, it should have been a delicious literary dish, but in reality, it suffered from a lack of that special spice.
Not in the abstract way, but, like, in the “where the heck did this train of thought come from?” way.
Like I swear parts of this book were legit in dreams I had in middle school. The city and the factory, for sure. And they were the kind of dreams I woke up from and thought “wow, I should write a book about this” but then gave up on the next morning.
Thankfully, Juman Malouf did the work for me, and created The Trilogy of Two.
My favorite parts of the book were the summary on the inside cover and the prologue. And I mean that genuinely. The prologue was actually so beautiful, and unique, and intriguing. And it seemed like such a unique voice and style.
Unfortunately, the rest of the book felt awfully “meh” compared to it.
It wasn’t bad at all. I didn’t find the skipping around too confusing. It felt like it could be shelved with classic, classic fantasy, right next to Wonderland, Narnia, and Oz. However, for me, it just lacked that extra special oomph. All the ingredients were there, I think it was just the execution. For some reason, it just didn’t click with me.
It was a perfectly decent read, but other than the idea of the rainy city, nothing really stood out. Maybe the concepts did, but the characters didn’t, and that’s where it fell flat.
The climax was surprisingly intense, but I didn’t follow the build up enough for it to really have an impact. Again, between the unique concept and voice, and unarguably beautiful illustrations, it should have been a delicious literary dish, but in reality, it suffered from a lack of that special spice.
August 13, 2018
The premise for this story was so interesting, and I'm pleased to say that it lived up to expectations. I think Sonja and Charlotte were fantastic characters and had a great chemistry. I also loved their relationship with Tatty as well, and I think this aspect of the text was brilliantly explored. It definitely was not your average orphan tale, which worked well in avoiding cliché, and made the story that much more unique.
Like all good fantasy stories, the setting was gorgeously and intricately described, and this really added to how much I enjoyed this novel. The journey that Charlotte and Sonja embark on was so interesting to read about, and the fact that I could visualise all the parts of their journey and the places they visit definitely added to this enjoyment. The illustrations were beautiful and made the whole novel that much more magical.
The writing itself was very polished and the descriptions were wonderful; it very much tied the brilliant characterisation and the setting descriptions all together to create a brilliant story. Malouf perfectly masters the art of creating a story for children that is sophisticated, yet with a certain air of playfulness. The mystery at the heart of the novel surrounding Charlotte and Sonja's background was maintained well throughout the story, culminating in an ending I was not expecting! Even though fantasy is not my favourite genre, overall, I very much enjoyed this book, and I'm intrigued to find out what Malouf comes up with next!
Like all good fantasy stories, the setting was gorgeously and intricately described, and this really added to how much I enjoyed this novel. The journey that Charlotte and Sonja embark on was so interesting to read about, and the fact that I could visualise all the parts of their journey and the places they visit definitely added to this enjoyment. The illustrations were beautiful and made the whole novel that much more magical.
The writing itself was very polished and the descriptions were wonderful; it very much tied the brilliant characterisation and the setting descriptions all together to create a brilliant story. Malouf perfectly masters the art of creating a story for children that is sophisticated, yet with a certain air of playfulness. The mystery at the heart of the novel surrounding Charlotte and Sonja's background was maintained well throughout the story, culminating in an ending I was not expecting! Even though fantasy is not my favourite genre, overall, I very much enjoyed this book, and I'm intrigued to find out what Malouf comes up with next!
July 19, 2024
Overall this book felt pretty mediocre. It is a YA book so it’s not targeted directly for me at my age, however I did want to give it a try as it sounded promising. There were many let downs but also I liked how everything was wrapped up and some of the surprises included along the way I just don’t envision myself reading this story again.
Starting with my cons:
- How do these children supposedly have four parents but no one to actually keep them in line?
- How did the girls never notice before how closely they looked to Alexandria.
- I don’t like that the conclusion of the story doesn’t provide more to the world turning back to the way it was or the scrummagers getting a better life and everything getting fixed it was just fixing the issues for the girls and the people of the seven Eden’s instead.
For my pros:
- I do like that the story was able to be wrapped up well.
- I like the surprises/twists included throughout the book with Alexandria being a mother but also related to Kats. It added to the plot line. Same with Edgar being a liar and manipulating everyone to get his way.
- I like that all the kids were able to get their talents back and not just the twins.
Overall like I said I probably won’t be able to read this book again. It wasn’t enticing enough to interest me for a second time.
Starting with my cons:
- How do these children supposedly have four parents but no one to actually keep them in line?
- How did the girls never notice before how closely they looked to Alexandria.
- I don’t like that the conclusion of the story doesn’t provide more to the world turning back to the way it was or the scrummagers getting a better life and everything getting fixed it was just fixing the issues for the girls and the people of the seven Eden’s instead.
For my pros:
- I do like that the story was able to be wrapped up well.
- I like the surprises/twists included throughout the book with Alexandria being a mother but also related to Kats. It added to the plot line. Same with Edgar being a liar and manipulating everyone to get his way.
- I like that all the kids were able to get their talents back and not just the twins.
Overall like I said I probably won’t be able to read this book again. It wasn’t enticing enough to interest me for a second time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 2, 2021
I really wanted to like this book. It's got interesting artwork and a title that drew me in; the setting in the first few chapters had a macabre charm that I was interested in seeing more of. There were some great unique details throughout the book, but ultimately, I found it difficult to get into, boring in places (despite the frenetic pace of the action, everything seems a little to distanced from the main characters; and that main characters are hard to relate to, so even any connection they might feel was lost on me as the reader), and so chock full of characters and places that I often found myself confused about who was who and not caring enough to look back and set the record straight. Anyway. I didn't hate it, but it definitely didn't live up to the potential of the first few chapters. This review by another reader actually sums up my own thoughts better than I can: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 16, 2019
A very strange book with fabulous illustrations.
Sonja and Charlotte are identical twins . They are musical prodigies who could play before they could talk .
Born on All Hallows Eve they were abandoned and left for dead . The Tatooed Lady ,Tatty from the travelling circus found them and they have been hers ever since . The circus travels through The Outskirts as they are known.
Recently things have been happening whenever the twins perform their musical act . Items move on their own , strange vibrations are felt and at the last performance a cloud appeared at the top of the tent and rain soaked the audience through. Now the twins must flee for their own safety . Worse still their magical talent is now missing . The girls must go on a dangerous journey to find out about their family past.
Sonja and Charlotte are identical twins . They are musical prodigies who could play before they could talk .
Born on All Hallows Eve they were abandoned and left for dead . The Tatooed Lady ,Tatty from the travelling circus found them and they have been hers ever since . The circus travels through The Outskirts as they are known.
Recently things have been happening whenever the twins perform their musical act . Items move on their own , strange vibrations are felt and at the last performance a cloud appeared at the top of the tent and rain soaked the audience through. Now the twins must flee for their own safety . Worse still their magical talent is now missing . The girls must go on a dangerous journey to find out about their family past.
April 9, 2019
The drawings were what saved this book from losing another star to my review. They were beautiful and could have held the story on their own with just some narrative points added. Otherwise, it was a fantasy that didn't quite get fantastical enough for me.
The story is about a set of twins who have been orphaned and are living in a circus in a cyber-punk era when too much rain has dissolved and sunk cities so that only the 1000th floors are habitable and much of the population live in the Outskirts. There is sorcery and changelings and power-grabs, but it never quite caught the flame for me.
The story is about a set of twins who have been orphaned and are living in a circus in a cyber-punk era when too much rain has dissolved and sunk cities so that only the 1000th floors are habitable and much of the population live in the Outskirts. There is sorcery and changelings and power-grabs, but it never quite caught the flame for me.
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