Rick Riordan Presents- Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

*Briiiing* *Briiiing* *Click* Hello,
So first of all, yes I did just open with phone noises. Second of all, YES this is about Rick Riordan's imprint book Aru Shah and the End of Time. So Uncle Rick (for those of you out there who are sadly uninformed on the world of Percy Jackson Uncle Rick is what we call Rick Riordan. He's not my actual uncle. That would be cool though.) didn't write it but he had to do with the process and chose the author. You can tell he was involved by things like the chapter titles and some of the characters and their actions.
The characters:

• Aru: She is like any girl, she wants to have friends, people to talk to. She attends a fancy school and doesn't exactly fit in so she makes up little lies and stories about things she does/has done. In reality she is the daughter of the curator of the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture.
• Sleeper: He's the bad guy who is released from the Lamp Bharata, because of course there are people getting released from lamps Rick had something to do with it. He is going to wake the God of Destruction if Aru cannot stop him in time.
• Boo- I couldn't talk about characters and not mention him because well he's Boo. He's the Grover/Coach Hedge/Bes of this series. 

So this series is going to be about Aru Shah (and no I do not know haw to properly pronounce her name so don't ask. However, if you are Indian Hindu and know how to properly pronounce it please comment and tell me.) and her adventures as a reincarnation of one of the legendary Pandava brothers. Yes brothers, because it is the reincarnation of the soul not body so a Pandava brother can indeed be a girl. This book centers around her finding out that she is a reincarnation of one of these brothers and before that accidentally releasing the Sleeper who wants to destroy the world, whoops. 

This book was गजब का (which is the word for amazing in Hindi). I loved it. Aru is kind of like Annabeth in The Heroes of Olympus and the Olympians series. If you are unfortunate enough to not have read these series she's smart and powerful and doesn't take crap from anybody about anything. So Aru's a bit like that but a bit more uncertain of herself so more Olympians than Heroes of Olympus. But anyway she's awesome and then the plot was amazing. Not to mention the chapter titles. So I say 9-10 is when it would be okay to start reading it. I personally give it ten of ten paw prints. 🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾
Tootles,
Merlin:)

One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus

Hello my dear bibliophiles,
So this one was recommended to me by my friend, looking at you CA. I really enjoyed it am and really glad I read it. It really gave me a little bit of a Riverdale™© feel. By that I mean some of the relationships and action remained me of season two of Riverdale, which I stopped watching like halfway through because I got bored. I'll watch it on Netflix when it gets there. So now that I've made you curious I'm going to tell you about the characters.

• Bronwyn- She's the perfect, straight-A, Ivy League bound student. Everybody knows one. Heck I am that person or at least strive to be that person. So yeah, she's that person. Some people love her others not so much.
• Addy- She's your popular girl. Not a cheerleader per say but she's at every gathering and social event. She's dating a football player for heavens sake.
• Nate- He's the bad-boy. He deals drugs and everything like that.
• Cooper-He's the jock. He plays some other sports, but he is the king of baseball (and honey you should see him in a crown). He is an all-star pitcher.
• Simon- He's the outcast. He created a gossip app and tells everybody's secrets.

There you have your main characters with slightly more information than the cover. Do you see where I'm going with the Riverdale thing? 

So here's your story. All five of these kid's end up in detention one day. Only four come out. Simon dies that day and everyone in detention is a suspect. See Simon was planning on revealing secrets on his app the next day. They don't seem like the kind of people to have secrets that they would kill to keep from coming out do they? Well everybody has their secrets.

Like I said I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a really good mystery and it kept me guessing throughout the book. Somewhere around half way through I thought I had it figured out and I was going to be very disappointed. I was very wrong. I give it ten of ten paw prints. 🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

13-14 years old minimum so like eighth ninth grade.

Tootles,

Merlin:)