Reviews

Through the Skylight by Justin Gerard, Ian Baucom

gmamartha's review against another edition

3.0

Grand adventure for middle school kids set in Venice. We all believe that what is written in books pulls us in and becomes our world, right??

xandra_lyn's review against another edition

mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This had such an interesting start, but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. It did a lot of "telling" (instead of showing). My favorite characters were the animals, but the kids kinda got on my nerves. I also didn't like how the bad guy basically got away. It's like he didn't know how to get rid of him.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping and Gore

Gore: relics come back to life, and it's a bit gruesome

trash_reader_'s review against another edition

I got bored. This didn't keep me interested all that much, despite it having a lot of promise in the beginning.

lazygal's review against another edition

3.0

A relatively strong version of the modern children go on an adventure genre: here, three siblings in modern day Venice find a mysterious shop and the shopkeeper gives them the opportunity to take a turn at his sack of oddities. They pull out two rings and a die, all somehow magic and somehow integrated in a book about the One Thousand and One Nights. Thanks to these 'trinkets' and the book, Jared, Shireen and Miranda are drawn into an adventure that includes three children enchanted during the Middle Ages, St. George's dragon, a faun, talking cats and the stone lions of Venice coming to life.

While those may sound relatively quotidian to followers of this genre, they're brought together in a way that will engage readers. To my mind, it was better than The Thief Lord, which was supposed to be this sort of magical adventure!

ARC provided by publisher.

can_has_sock's review against another edition

3.0

I liked it, and I'm older than its target audience. I did think it wasn't quite bedtime reading material, as there were a few creepy parts that some kids might like but that others (including my adult self) *really* did not need to read right before sleeping...Not the best book I've ever read, but a whole lot better than a lot of YA fiction I've read in the past few years.

booksandbosox's review against another edition

2.0

http://librarianosnark.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-through-skylight.html