Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

Description:

This is an intriguing YA urban fantasy in the tradition of Holly Black and Wicked Lovely. Set in New Zealand, Ellie's main concerns at her boarding school are hanging out with her best friend Kevin, her crush on the mysterious Mark, and her paper deadline. That is, until a mysterious older woman seems to set her sights on Kevin, who is Maori, and has more than just romantic plans for him. In an effort to save him, Ellie is thrown into the world of Maori lore, and eventually finds herself in an all-out war with mist dwelling Maori fairy people called the patupaiarehe who need human lives to gain immortality.

The strong, fresh voice of the narrator will pull readers in, along with all the deliciously scary details: the serial killer who removes victim's eyes; the mysterious crazy bum who forces a Bible on Ellie telling her she needs it; handsome, mysterious Mark who steals the Bible from her and then casts a forgetting charm on her. All of this culminates in a unique, incredible adventure steeped with mythology, Maori fairies, monsters, betrayal, and an epic battle (from Goodreads). 

My Thoughts:

I’ve seen this book around and it’s been on my to-be-read list for a while now. When I found out that my local library had this book I signed it out.

So what do I think of this book. When I first read the description it sounded very interesting, but as I was reading it I found it confusing. Book is set in New Zealand and there is a lot of mythology and faeries talk in this book. There were a lot of terms used that were not explained or were included in the glossary at the end of the book. This book utilises a lot of local mythology that I am not familiar with, even though I was not familiar with it there were some resemblance to ancient Greek mythology. It took me over hundred pages to get into this book, but even them my interest was not fully on the story. Aside from confusion, story was all over the place; it jumped from event to event, there was no smooth transition. Characters were also all over the place and very one dimensional. World build up was ok, but nothing to amazing. It actually lacked explanation of mythology and its workings. I found that the present day New Zealand and mythology were just jumbled together and confusing.

Ellie, I am not sure what to think of her, on one hand I liked her and on other I did not really care about her. I found her to be lacking confidence. She is smart and I am pretty sure that she is no ugly duckling, but to hear her describe herself you would think she beyond ugly. She compares herself to the prettiest girl in the school and envy’s her. She is conscious about her weight and always says things like no boy would ever be interested in me because I am not pretty as so and so. Ellie’s part in the story was not very clear to me, her power origins were not very well explained or how they worker, nothing in this book was explained very well. Ellie’s and Mark’s relationship was boring, there was no tension and really did not keep my interest.

Over all this was an ok read, nothing groundbreaking. Even though the idea for the story sounded very interesting and entertaining, this read was not. I found myself confused, bored and irritated at this book. I just kept reading it because I wanted to be done with it. I give this book 2/5 STARTS.