The Green Boy Review (Spoilers)

Title: The Green Boy
Author: Sherif Guirguis and Isaac Michaan 
​Genre: Adventure
Series: Yes
Rating: 4/5
Age: Any Ages by Sherif Guirguis  (Author), Isaac Michaan (Author)

Synopsis

Inner Earth, Agartha, a land where the color of your Aura defines you, losing the entire population of greens to the war left a visible void.
Ethan, a fourteen-year-old young man, discovers he has a green aura, the last of an extinct race. He leaves the school of Nafoura in search of the truth about the fate of the greens, and to find a home to call his own.
Joined by a girl from our earth, and an exiled shapeshifter, Ethan must race to the Chronicler of Agartha in search of answers.
But Ethan has a mark on his head by the very woman who decimated his people, doggedly chasing after him for nefarious reasons of her own.
Ethan must walk a thin line to get his answers, inadvertently stepping into the web of a prophecy he knows nothing about, one which may lead to salvation, or to a promise of doom for his and our world.

The Green Boy is the first installment in The Chronicles of Agartha. It is set to be published February 20th this year! The novel is written by Sherif Guiguis and Isaac Michaan. Michaan was generous enough to provide me with an ARC, so before we go any further, a huge thank you for the opportunity to read and review this before it hits shelves! Now on to the good stuff. The Green Boy is uniquely centered around the legend of the Agartha, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The story follows Ethan, our main protagonist and window into the world of Agatha, a world beneath our own. Ethan exists in a world filled with great beasts of legend… a world where having extortionary abilities is common place. Readers will follow Ethan as he discovers friends and foes and finds answers to questions that seem to follow him. Now back to that Agartha thing. If you know what that is great! You can skip this next bit. If not stick with me because you will need this before your can truly appreciate this novel.
The Agartha is a legendary land that is believed to be located inside the earth. It falls in line with the hollow earth theory. And you thought flat earthers were hard to follow. Ok but in all seriousness the more I looked into this modern-day legend the more intrigued I was and the more I was able to appreciate the setting of this novel. Unfortunately, I had no idea that this legend even existed going in which led to A LOT of initial confusion on my part. I would recommend just doing a light google search and you are ready to read.

My Thoughts

So let’s talk positives first. I had the same passion for this book that I had for the Harry Potter series when I first read it. Perhaps it was the relatable trio that felt familiar. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for these fantasy novels that follow a group of kids with superpowers. Maybe. After mulling it over for a few days I’ve narrowed it down to this. The Green Boy has heart. Many books that I’ve read since I started reviewing were wonderful. Their world building was right on. Characters were perfectly developed. I could taste the food. Smell the perfumes. See the characters as they danced across the backs of my eyelids. Despite this many of them lacked heart. It felt like the author had lost interest and so eventually I too lost interest. I highlight this because there were many things, I took issue with in The Green Boy but if a sequel was released tomorrow I would be at my bookstore in minutes. Despite all of it’s flaws The Green Boy was very easy for me to enjoy.
The biggest issue I had with The Green Boy was the grammatical errors. As an editor myself I attribute these errors to the editor rather than the authors. These grammatical errors often stood out like a sore thumb and distracted from the overall writing. Things like changes in subject verb agreement mid-sentence interrupted the overall flow. The dialogue as well always felt very stilted. Considering the book follows children this overly proper English feels out of place. The presence of anything resembling slang was completely absent from any conversations had by teen protagonists. Perhaps it would be better fit for a historical plot taking place in 1700’s wealthy England, but a fantasy/Sci-Fi novel that follows teenagers? Seems odd. Now it is worth mentioning that the dialogue was very consistent throughout the novel meaning this could be attributed to a stylistic choice on behalf of the authors. However due to what we know of the world and characters it’s just hard to tell. The last thing I want to touch on is the execution. The idea for this story is a good one. It’s interesting and has so many possibilities, unfortunately the execution was a bit off. The plot was easy enough to follow for the first two hundred or so pages, but the novel was littered with plot holes both major and minor.
Alright let’s wrap this up. On a whole I thoroughly enjoyed The Green Boy both for it’s intriguing plot and it’s use of plot elements that I am fond of. The character chemistry was well done but as mentioned above it was absolutely not supported by the way in which the dialogue was written. The Green Boy is undoubtably an interesting book, that pulls you in from the start. And while appropriate for readers of all ages I think the younger side of YA readers will find more interest, perhaps eleven and up. Readers will fall in love with the main characters and truly enjoy watching these relationships grow into friendship. As this is the first installment there will likely be more than a few more books in this series. Keep your eyes open for the next installment in The Chronicles of Agartha series. ​