Sara Trimboli

It only took just one step to change sixteen-year-old Alexandra Jennings world. Abandoned in an entirely new world, Alex, the main protagonist, is forced to voyage through a diverse fantasy, teeming with impossibilities as she desperately searches for a way to return home. Alex and her two best friends, Jordan, and Bear, discover peculiar and unexplored features of Akarnae whilst going on adventures as a tight trio. During the many weird things happening at Akarnae, she starts to get the undeniable feeling that something menacing is lurking. A lot of burden is weighing on Alex’s crucial decisions, will she save the Medorans even if it means jeopardising her chance of ever returning home? There are many positive aspects to this novel that just make it so easy to become attached. After a bit of a slow start, you get to travel through a gripping and surreal journey of friendship, uncertainty, and enchantment as it immerses you into the world of Medora. You eventually become attached to the novel as you travel deeper into story, meeting characters and getting to know more about the new world. As the story progresses, the characters develop exceptionally well, and you fall in love with all their unique personalities. Noni builds up the characters with depth as we travel further into the story discovering new aspects about them, personally, my favourite is Alex. Alex’s story starts with a little misery and rejection, but she builds up to be a strong, fearless and determined character while also being fun and witty. The deuteragonists of the series, Jordan and Bear, also had great character development, proving to be loyal, funny, honest and supportive sidekicks. D.C. also ends up creating a strong bond with Alex, after learning to trust each other. An additional great factor to the novel is the world building of Medora. Noni descriptively explained the setting, buildings and location in detail to enable the reader to create a mental image this made it all more realistic. The only issues that I found while reading Akarnae is that some parts were predictable which slightly effected the climax and there was also quite a slow beginning giving much backstory information. Akarnae is the first book of The Medoran Chronicles, written by Australian Author Lynette Noni, published in February 2015 by Pantera Press. It is a breathtaking fantasy fiction novel series recommended for young adults. I enjoyed reading every bit of the novel, it compelled me to constantly keep turning all 436 pages until the very end. I can’t wait to read the subsequent book in the series, Raelia. I highly recommend this novel to readers who are fans of Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Percy Jackson and X-men. Akarnae definitely deserves a 5 out of 5 stars. ★★★★★ LOVEE IT!!! 😍❤️