3 out of 4 stars
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From Frights to Flaws by Sunayna Prasad is a cute contemporary fantasy story for young readers. Since her parents’ deaths in a car crash seven years ago, twelve-year-old Alyssa lives with her strict uncle, where she passes her days being homeschooled and doing lessons. Unknown to her, Alyssa’s life is about to get much more interesting. She begins receiving strange notes about magic, and odd things start happening in her uncle’s house. With the arrival of a wizard named Simon, who is a living marble figure, Alyssa learns that a dark wizard seeks to use Alyssa to gain enough power so he can rule France. Caught up in fearful circumstances, Alyssa must find a way to defeat the dark wizard before he can use her.
This story has a lot of heart. Alyssa is a strong kid who’s not afraid to speak up, even when adults think she’s crazy for believing in things like magic. When she learns that the dark wizard is going to harm her uncle, Alyssa does everything she can to warn him, despite that he’s not her favorite person. When she’s told about the dark wizard’s tragic past, she even feels for him to a degree. Alyssa is a great example of compassion. She’s definitely a character I could cheer for.
The story also has a sort of whimsy to it. Even though there’s lots of talk of enslaving and killing, there are moments of brightness and humor, too. A little ways into the story, the dark wizard kidnaps Alyssa and brings her to his base on Fiji. There, she’s rescued by some good wizards, who quickly become great mentors and friends to our leading lady. The magical world itself is adorable. There are magical versions of iPads and laptops with magical versions of popular apps. Actually, the further I read, the more this enchanting world seemed at odds with the killing talk. Some of the darkness feels too dark for the story, but that problem isn’t present throughout the entire book. The bad guys have a humorously dumb side, which tempers the darkness.
There were a handful of story inconsistencies. Toward the beginning, the time of an appointment changed a couple of times. A bit later, Alyssa and her cousin stay with a friend of their uncle’s while he goes to an emergency meeting for work. When he picks them up, Alyssa asks if he saw the magical note on the passenger seat, when the note actually appeared during dinner when her uncle wasn’t even around. This kind of thing happened a few times. I found it a bit distracting, but it was infrequent enough that it didn’t hamper my reading experience too much.
On a bigger scale, character motivations seemed off. Simon explains the dark wizard’s story and reasons for his actions over a few scenes. I had to reread them a few times to figure out what on Earth was happening and why exactly the wizard wanted to rule France at all. There were so many little details and twists in the telling. On a similar note, many things seemed to just happen because an event needed to take place. For example, Alyssa and her friends on Fiji wanted to be able to know what the dark wizard was doing, and suddenly, Simon had a temporary tracking app on his magical iPad.
Honestly, this is one of the toughest ratings I’ve had to assign. After much thought, I rate From Frights to Flaws 3 out of 4 stars. I noticed only a handful of errors, which made the actual reading easy. The confusing story aspects and inconsistencies almost brought my rating down to 2. However, Alyssa’s strength as a protagonist coupled with the fantastic worldbuilding bumped my choice up a star. I definitely recommend this book to a young audience, especially girls between 9 and 12. The dark themes might make this a little scary for younger kids, and adults, particularly ones fluent in the fantasy genre, may not have enough here to hold their interest. Though, if you’re up for a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously, this is a fun and lighthearted read.
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From Frights to Flaws, 2nd Edition
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