Akarnae (The Medoran Chronicles #1) by Lynette Noni

Blurb

With just one step, sixteen-year-old Alexandra Jennings’s world changes—literally.

Dreading her first day at a new school, Alex is stunned when she walks through a doorway and finds herself stranded in Medora, a fantasy world full of impossibilities.

Desperate to return home, she learns that only a man named Professor Marselle can help her… but he’s missing.

While waiting for him to reappear, Alex attends Akarnae Academy, Medora’s boarding school for teenagers with extraordinary gifts. She soon starts to enjoy her bizarre new world and the friends who embrace her as one of their own, but strange things are happening at Akarnae, and Alex can’t ignore her fear that something unexpected… something sinister… is looming.

An unwilling pawn in a deadly game, Alex’s shoulders bear the crushing weight of an entire race’s survival. Only she can save the Medorans, but what if doing so prevents her from ever returning home?

Will Alex risk her entire world—and maybe even her life—to save Medora?

My Perspective

I follow Lynette Noni’s blog and I’ve been wanting to read her debut novel for some time now. I got my hands on a copy and I’ve finally been able to read it!

Akarnae follows Alexandra (Alex) Jennings as she is transported to another world, Medora and the Akarnae Academy for the gifted. Much to her surprise, her arrival is expected and the only person who can help her get home again is Akarnae’s headmaster – who happens to be absent. In the meantime, she is enrolled into the academy, makes two best friends, and is discovering all that this new world has to offer.

A common description for this book is a mix of Harry Potter, Narnia, and The X-Men. While that may make it unoriginal, to me if you enjoyed the story and can’t wait to read the next book, well the author has done her job.

At first the writing felt unnatural, like the author was trying too hard however it soon started to flow a lot better and settled in to a great YA story.

Alex was easy to like. She was down to earth, a bit of a klutz and really put a solid effort in. Her acceptance of being thrown into another world was a little bit unbelievable however the overall tone of the book feels more lighthearted and fun than major epic so I’m not sure whether the author is going for that so isn’t too concerned about it being too believable (this goes for all the technology too, which wasn’t so much far fetched – just the way it was explained was a bit simplistic). The other characters were fun and likeable – Jordan and Bear are definitely the kind of guys a teenage girl wants as her best friends. The villain wasn’t as strong as he could have been, he was the only character who I was disappointed in. He fell a bit flat. In turn, the whole “complication” of the story fell a bit flat. That was probably my only major qualm with the story.

The story is interesting, holds mystery and adventure, is super fun and really goes all out with the imagination. I really loved that even though Alex obviously is attracted to some of the fellows in the book, it’s completely not a focus at all. That part felt very realistic and gains a huge thumbs up for me (so many YA are bogged down in ridiculous romance).

Overall I really enjoyed the story and I found it hard to put down. I was pulled into Medora along with Alex and although it’s not the most original text, it’s fun and lighthearted and full of adventure. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series – Raelia – it comes out on March 23rd!