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A review by domenicfarinelli
The Quillan Games by D.J. MacHale
3.0
I have slightly mixed feelings about this book. I discovered the "Pendragon Adventure" in junior high, and read the first six books by the time I reached sophomore year of high school. I tried reading the "Quillan Games" numerous times, but never got past the first chapter. Robot spiders really aren't my thing. However, if you give it a chance and push past Bobby's first journal, it does get better. The story has a very "Hunger Games" feel to it, although this one was actually published first, and I definitely appreciate MacHale's ability to tie in those little details from earlier books. He definitely has a plan for this series, and I look forward to seeing how it plays out.
Some aspects of the plot seem forced, such as the fact that Saint Dane is able to impersonate pretty much everyone Bobby and his friends come into contact with, and the majority of Bobby's story is very slow moving. The writing gets repetitive, and I wish that MacHale would vary his sentence structure every so often. Of course, he is writing through the perspective of a 17 year old boy, so I suppose this is forgivable; I just wish that the writing style would develop a bit. The other thing that I notice is that I am much more interested in Courtney and Mark and their story on Second Earth than I am in Bobby and his adventures through time and space. Unfortunately, the aforementioned duo appear in less than a hundred pages of every book, so I hope that as the series begins to culminate, we see more of these two, similar to their participation in "Black Water."
Overall, this is definitely a worthwhile read. It's not the best book ever, nor is it the best in its series, but I'm glad I've read it and suggest it to fans of the series.
Some aspects of the plot seem forced, such as the fact that Saint Dane is able to impersonate pretty much everyone Bobby and his friends come into contact with, and the majority of Bobby's story is very slow moving. The writing gets repetitive, and I wish that MacHale would vary his sentence structure every so often. Of course, he is writing through the perspective of a 17 year old boy, so I suppose this is forgivable; I just wish that the writing style would develop a bit. The other thing that I notice is that I am much more interested in Courtney and Mark and their story on Second Earth than I am in Bobby and his adventures through time and space. Unfortunately, the aforementioned duo appear in less than a hundred pages of every book, so I hope that as the series begins to culminate, we see more of these two, similar to their participation in "Black Water."
Overall, this is definitely a worthwhile read. It's not the best book ever, nor is it the best in its series, but I'm glad I've read it and suggest it to fans of the series.