e-Audio, 05:00:46
Narrated by: Ferdelle Capistrano
Release Date: October 15, 2024
Published by: HarperCollins
Read from: October 23-24, 2024
Stand-alone
Source: Library’s Libby (I got this one right before the download day via Netgalley. This did nothing to influence my review.)
Content Warning: Grief
For Readers Interested In: Fantasy, Mythology, MG, Sparkly Covers, Own Voices, Stand-alone, Audio, Racial/Ethnic DiversityIn this magical adventure that’s perfect for fans of Lisa Yee and Erin Entrada Kelly, star athlete Thea must face her worst fears when two mischievous duwendes, Filipino goblins, threaten to wreak havoc on her life—and destroy her town.
Thea gets a chance to begin anew at Pacific Academy. There, she’s a star athlete, someone with friends and popularity.
But disaster strikes at Junior Stunt Warrior summer camp with her new friends: Her extremely uncool former best friend, Evan, shows up too, and she discovers that stunt class is the one activity she’s not good at. Actually, it’s something she’s terrified of. It all reminds Thea of the shy, invisible version of herself she’s determined to leave behind.
Then, in the midst of building a practice obstacle course, Thea wrecks a tree that a pair of grumpy duwendes—Filipino goblins—call home. She’s shocked that not only are duwendes real, but the two in her backyard want revenge.
Now Thea must team up with friends new and old to fend off the duwendes before they destroy her entire neighborhood. But can she pull it off while saving her cool-girl image, too?
*MY THOUGHTS*
This was so much fun! I’m ALWAYS going to read a book that has mythology of Black or people of color. And this time there was Filipino goblins, or duwendes. And baby, I didn’t know they were know they were going to do the things they did lmao
Ok so the duwendes got mad at the main character Thea because of an accident where she tore a branch off their home. Now this is hard because it was an accident. But they didn’t see it that way. Now I can’t lie, I know she was barely learning who she was, but she was not a great friend. She was very mucha mean girl and I wasn’t a fan of her at first. But this definitely made me realize how GOOD Tracy Badua is at character development because by the ending she learned she was harming people and she realized she was not a good friend and she changed her old ways. To be honest, I think this is one of the main reasons I like middle grade. They learn all these heavy lessons but are still going through all these other things too. These children are so strong.
So I had never heard of a duwende before, so of course since I’m me, I went to look it up. And those things look hella creepy lol I can’t imagine how they weren’t scared of those things lol But they were so damn smart. And conniving. Just everything. They aren’t described as scary in the book tho if you’re a parent and worried about that. That picture at the link is probably the real thing vs what’s in the book. SInce this is a MG book. They weren’t actually really described as anything vs what they look like on the cover.
The way her journey to finding out all of these things they were doing was pretty great as well. They were annoying and in the end she had to do some pretty bad things, but she learned from all of those things. I thought she was actually very strong too. From the type of camp she was at, the things she was doing even though she was terrified, and the things the duwendes were asking her to do. She was starting to get really annoyed and starting to think that she was not going to ever get it right, but she still tried. And I thought that was boss af lol
I said it once and I’ll say it again, THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN. I definitely had some fun reading this and it really made me go looking for some more MG books with mythology. And that’s how I know I loved a book. If I finish it and don’t want it to be over and try to find more like it, there’s a chance I haven’t fully left that world yet. And this is one of those books.
Overall, I give this
