Magonia Review

Since becoming a blogger I've become a different reader.  Before I wrote book reviews, I wouldn't bother finishing a book that wasn't working for me.  Now, I make my best effort to read books in their entirety, because I can write more informed reviews that way.  Still, I was only able to get through about two thirds of Magonia before skipping ahead to the ending and calling it a day.

Magonia is a Narnia-esque fantasy — a girl living in the normal world discovers a magical one, just "through the wardrobe," as it were.  Aza, the girl in question, has always been sickly, unable to breathe air effectively, for some mysterious reason.  Her doctors say she's quickly running out of time.  But, just at a fatal moment, Aza is whisked away to Magonia, a land of bird-like creatures and airships in the sky. Able to breathe the thin air, Aza comes into her own strengths for the first time, but must question the intentions of her new Magonian family. What do they want with her and are they being entirely forthright? Meanwhile, back on the ground, Aza's best friend, Jason, is determined to find her...

I have a lot of problems with Magonia.  One of my main issues is that the book is stretched too thin.  Headley wrote a stand-alone contemporary/fantasy — with only 320 pages!!  On top of that, the novel spends a good amount of time in exposition mode at its beginning.  I think it was the author's intention to build up her characters and raise the emotional stakes of her story by fleshing out Aza's existing relationships before she's taken away to Magonia. It was a good idea, but I think the book would have been better served by jumping into action a little quicker.  Because the beginning lagged, Headley had to start her fantasy world-building late in the game, which hurt the pace of the story.

On top of that, we were pulled away from Magonia over and over again by the chapters focusing on Jason's — largely internal — activities.  He was a thin character, slavishly devoted to Aza.  It bothers me when characters can't stand on their own, and Jason entire purpose throughout the novel was to worship Aza... who was over-worshiped. Her funeral scene left me alternatively sniggering and gaping.  A moment that was supposed to move me, instead gave me the biggest laugh in the book! [spoiler]When Jason, who is wearing an alligator suit, with the words "Aza Ray was here" painted on the head, drives to the burial honking morse code messages to Aza... only not real morse code because he doesn't want anyone to know what he's saying. [/spoiler] Truly, the histrionics in this book turned me off.  The emotion was always ramped up to ten, but because I was not invested, everything came across as clownish.

In case it hasn't come across clearly yet, I do not recommend this book.  A good alternative would be The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.