A beautiful beginning to what promises to be a wonderful series! Beautifully written, with realistic relationships and characters who are not the cardboard stereotypes of many teen books. These characters are alive and real, and there is room left for them to grow and learn. For example, as a physically strong girl myself I could identify with Katherine and her feelings of being a misfit. In many books for teens these days, there are "girl fighters" but they all have high levels of confidence and of course are conventionally beautiful, too. Here is a female heroine who is described as a real girl and she comes with the resulting lack of confidence in herself when surrounded by a chauvinist society, as ours is for the most part. She doesn't even realize that her friend Edmund, a bit of a misfit himself as a nerdy boy, is totally in love with her and thinks she is beautiful. We can hope that with time she will learn confidence and become proud of who she is - and we can see that happening even as the first book progresses. Tom is an interesting character, I can see him becoming more important as the series goes on. I like his quiet thoughtfulness, I think he has hidden depths. And I think many of us can identify with Edmund and his struggle to prove himself to his parents, to make them understand that he wasn't born to follow in their footsteps.Besides the characters, the setting of The Nethergrim is rich and fascinating. It's like an alternate history to our world, almost. I love the details about the ruins and ancient languages. And the magic seems to be based on philosophy and science as well as fantasy, I liked the interweaving of what is real in our world and what is possible in theirs - very cool!Overall, I enjoyed this book more than any other I can remember reading recently, I was engrossed from the first page and read it all in a weekend. I highly recommend it! It was a generation ago that the wizard Vithric and the knight Tristan battled the evil Nethergrim and the creatures with him. The kingdom still sings songs about the battle and there are festivals every year to honor them. Now there is something dark near the village and animals are disappearing with only their bones left behind. Then suddenly, children disappear. What begins as whispered concerns quickly become a hysterical cry – The Nethergrim is back! One of the missing is Edmund’s brother and he knows he must try to save his brother’s life. Edmund seems to have a touch of magic, but with his father forbidding any reading and no wizard to train him properly, he must learn on the go with his friends at his side.The Nethergrim is the first book in a new fantasy trilogy. Because it is the start of a new series, readers will experience a lot of character development, world building and background creation. Although all of that is expected, the reader may find the story flat and wanting in sections. I believe if readers understand that this is a debut novel, they may give Jobin some leeway in the final product. I can’t say for certain if I will read the next book in the series or not.
What do You think about The Nethergrim (2014)?
Found this in Junior Fiction, and was very entertained. This book is great escape reading.
—Gaby
Very interesting context and wold, some really thoughtful aspects.
—jenniferrae
