A review by jenhurst
Amari and the Great Game by B.B. Alston

5.0

Just like with the first, I can’t give this anything less then 5 stars. I’m not a middle grade reader and I’m not in the demographic, but this book was so good. The world building, characters, writing, everything. It’s one of the few YA/middle grade books where the best friend Elsie is just as developed as Amari. She feels like an equal, not the side kick to her. Plus I care so much about Amari’s brother and can see how much he loves her, and to be honest he’s hardly had any page time. This did have a similar structure to the first one, but the first few Harry Potter books did as well, so I can’t really fault the book for this. This series and Nevermoor are the only middle grade books that I think five similar feels to Harry Potter and I really hope that it reaches a similar popularity level with a good adaption. Amari is one of my favourite protagonists ever.