A review by alexvalpeter
The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel

4.0

On paper this book has everything that I theoretically love: historical fiction, a long train journey, a traveling circus,
Spoilera heist plot
, and a sprinkle of magic. It does deliver on all of those things for me personally, but it fell a little short in other places. One of my biggest complaints is the romance between
SpoilerWill and Maren. You meet Maren within the first five pages and it’s instantly obvious she’s going to be a future love interest
. The constant pining and cheeks flushing and hands brushing was incredibly annoying and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes many times
Spoiler, though that’s about as bad as it gets in terms of romance scene content
. Maybe I wouldn’t have cared if I had read it when I was part of the target age range for this book, but I think the story would have been better if they were just friends, which is what I usually expect from middle grade books and part of the reason I like them.
SpoilerThe Indian cosplay was also a little weird but made sense in context, I guess.
Overall still a great and compelling story, solid 4 star read for me.