Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi - OPTIONAL

Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi, 355 pages. Disney Hyperion, 2018. $17.  

Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Aru Shah lives in a museum with her mother and feels out of place at her upscale school.  When classmates come to the museum to catch Aru in one of her many lies, Aru takes out a lamp that she isn’t supposed to touch to impress her classmates.  When Aru lights the lamp, everything around her freezes and she quickly gets pulled into a mythical realm.  Aru has to go on a quest to figure out what is wrong with her world and find her true self.  

This world is magical and has great descriptions.  I felt like the worlds that Aru visited were creative and new.  I can’t say Aru was easy to like, because she isn’t always honest and she took some getting used to.  Once the story got going, the story was exciting enough and her character developed.  Sometimes there were so many dimensions and different mythical characters introduced that the main story seemed to get lost.  There is a glossary at the end, but it’s extensive, because there is so much going on in this book.  

C. Peterson.