Review of ARKO
Posted: 27 Jul 2023, 14:46
[Following is a volunteer review of "ARKO" by U.W. Leo.]
ARKO: The Dark Union follows a group of twelve-year-olds on wonderful adventures to save the planet.
Ariel, Amir, Abigail, Ben, and Gaia are all children of scientists —respectively Daniel (historian/archeologist), Nilakantha (paleontologist), Lilia (doctor), Isaac (physics and computer scientist), and Gustav ((crazy) microbiologist).
The team travels to Mexico to research the Mayan civilization. Kids being kids, the five children wander in the forest while their parents work. They soon discover a concealed door in a rock wall. They randomly trigger the mechanism to open it and decide to explore the dark path it reveals. Deep in the bowels of the earth, they discover a piece of ancient, yet futuristic, machinery they call the Lightrino. Naturally, they (and by they, I mean Ariel) will decide to explore further.
Scientific stuff ensues, resulting in five preteens riding dinosaurs to save humanity from extinction.
What could go wrong?
It sounds cliché, but it did not disappoint. I don't want to be hard on the stereotypes; all YA books are full of them, and overused tropes don't make bad books.
Bonus point for the perfect editing: no typos or formatting errors to report. I noticed a few wordy sentences that were hard to understand (especially for a non-native English speaker), but this is just the author’s writing style.
Overall I had fun. It was a pleasant and refreshing read. I did not see the ending coming: it makes me want to read the sequel!
It took me some time to care about the characters. Initially, the children sound arrogant. They’re smart, even more intelligent than their top-scientists parents. Ariel was particularly excruciating at first.
On the other hand, most of the time, the parents act like children. They touch everything without thinking and draw fast conclusions that could endanger them all. They experiment on their kids and treat them like adults, not caring about their safety whatsoever.
This feeling passed with time, and around halfway through, some good dynamics bonded all the characters together. I cared for them and their adventures.
Many plot details are somewhat unrealistic. Some of the characters are shallow. And a few of my questions remain unanswered.
But it's a kid's book with flying dinosaurs and futuristic technologies, so who cares about realism? I enjoyed reading. Teens and young adults keen on science will too.
If I could, I would rate this book 3.5 stars —I’m rounding it up to 4 out of 5 stars.
******
ARKO
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
ARKO: The Dark Union follows a group of twelve-year-olds on wonderful adventures to save the planet.
Ariel, Amir, Abigail, Ben, and Gaia are all children of scientists —respectively Daniel (historian/archeologist), Nilakantha (paleontologist), Lilia (doctor), Isaac (physics and computer scientist), and Gustav ((crazy) microbiologist).
The team travels to Mexico to research the Mayan civilization. Kids being kids, the five children wander in the forest while their parents work. They soon discover a concealed door in a rock wall. They randomly trigger the mechanism to open it and decide to explore the dark path it reveals. Deep in the bowels of the earth, they discover a piece of ancient, yet futuristic, machinery they call the Lightrino. Naturally, they (and by they, I mean Ariel) will decide to explore further.
Scientific stuff ensues, resulting in five preteens riding dinosaurs to save humanity from extinction.
What could go wrong?
It sounds cliché, but it did not disappoint. I don't want to be hard on the stereotypes; all YA books are full of them, and overused tropes don't make bad books.
Bonus point for the perfect editing: no typos or formatting errors to report. I noticed a few wordy sentences that were hard to understand (especially for a non-native English speaker), but this is just the author’s writing style.
Overall I had fun. It was a pleasant and refreshing read. I did not see the ending coming: it makes me want to read the sequel!
It took me some time to care about the characters. Initially, the children sound arrogant. They’re smart, even more intelligent than their top-scientists parents. Ariel was particularly excruciating at first.
On the other hand, most of the time, the parents act like children. They touch everything without thinking and draw fast conclusions that could endanger them all. They experiment on their kids and treat them like adults, not caring about their safety whatsoever.
This feeling passed with time, and around halfway through, some good dynamics bonded all the characters together. I cared for them and their adventures.
Many plot details are somewhat unrealistic. Some of the characters are shallow. And a few of my questions remain unanswered.
But it's a kid's book with flying dinosaurs and futuristic technologies, so who cares about realism? I enjoyed reading. Teens and young adults keen on science will too.
If I could, I would rate this book 3.5 stars —I’m rounding it up to 4 out of 5 stars.
******
ARKO
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
