Keeper of the Lost Cities Plot

Sophie is not a normal 13 year old, she has the power of telepathy and can always hear everyone’s thoughts. To go along with that, she’s extremely smart, and has a photographic memory. She’s an outsider because of all of those things. Then, she sees a boy, on a class field trip, who just looks too pretty. And he is looking at her, something feels off and she talked to him.

Turns out that something is off about her life. Fitz, the boy, tells her that she isn’t a normal human, in fact, she isn’t a human at all. There is a secret world of elves and other magical and mythical creatures out there. In our own world, but just out of sight due to magic. But her life as a human will need to go away if she is going to be an elf and live the life that she’s supposed to.

More Details and Harry Potter Comparison

So I don’t want to go into much more. What I wrote is basically the back blurb on the cover, but it’s something that should wet your appetite. And don’t worry, Keeper of the Lost Cities is not another Harry Potter. There are elements that might feel similar. The main character integrates into a new world that they didn’t know existed.

And to continue that comparison, she is a bit of a chosen child, but not in the way that Harry Potter is. I think that chosen child comparison is something people will latch onto, but Shannon Messenger does a better job of writing a chosen child. Sophie is really behind for an elf. She doesn’t know the world, she is expected to know and catch-up to what she doesn’t know. When she gets stuff wrong, elves are disappointed.

Harry Potter constantly should be in trouble, and he is not. Sophie often should be in trouble, and when she is, she gets punished. Her life has many more real elements to it. Characters worry about her. They pester her. They bug her, stuff that you don’t see happen in Harry Potter. People either hate Harry or love Harry, there is nothing between the two. For Sophie, people look to use her, to befriend her because of who she is, avoid her, and expect everything from her. And she is trying to balance all of that.

What Doesn’t Work?

There is very little, if anything that doesn’t work. I should talk about book 8.5 here. Mainly because that might be something that won’t work for some people. Even for me, I found it fairly boring. The point of book 8.5 is that it’s a bit of a recap for everything that has happened. Plus a novella that tells some story where book 8 left off and where book 9 begins. Or at least I am assuming that.

If you read the series in a compressed period of time, most book 8.5 is unneeded. I know what the characters did recently. I don’t need a full recap, no matter what way it is written. And some of the sections are better written than others. It is more the authors notes turned into something in the world that you are reading through.

I don’t even mind that they exist. I mind that there is a pretty important feeling novella in the book. It is different than she could write for the main book. The main books only show Sophie’s perspective. The novella bounces between perspectives. But to get the novella, you get the whole book. And I say now, get the book, just read the novella.

What Works?

Characters

So much works in this series. Sophie is a believable main character and the side characters are strong as well. Often in Middle Grade or Young Adult books, the main character is a paper cutout of a character. It is meant for the reader to put themselves into their shoes. Sophie is not that. She is a fully realized and deeply developed character. And each of the side characters at least the core, are as realized as she is.

I fail to think of many series where this is the case. Especially in that grade range. And I think there should be more. The story is easily digestible for an adult. And while there are intense moments for maybe middle grade reader, it is going to be pull them in.

Story Depth and Intensity

And let’s talk about the intensity. The story, unlike others in it’s age range, isn’t shy about bad things happening. And not like they happen around Sophie. Some of them do happen to other people. And it is character development for those characters. And reasons that friendships become stronger. But often the bad is directed to Sophie. She is not given an easy life. She is not a hero who always steps in and saves the day.

In fact, most of the time, she needs to rely on others to help her. Does she lead, for sure, she is the chosen one after all. But it isn’t a situation where she can do it alone. And that is a struggle for her. To compare her to another fictional character, it is a lot like how Harry Dresden, in the Dresden Files, is always looking to do stuff himself. He does so because he doesn’t want others to get hurt. Sophie is the same way.

World Building and Themes

Shannon Messenger is very good about building out her world. It helps that some of it is our world. But the rest of it, with the elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, and more is different. But it is still similar. I think it is worked well like good fantasy or sci-fi. It is different enough that you feel like it isn’t our world, but close enough that it can touch on themes and issues that are true for us our world as well.

And I think that is another thing Messenger does well, also. She tells a good story with items that ring true. Now, it is still middle grade, so the depth of an issue isn’t always there. But that is okay, she is writing through the eyes of a 13-15 year old. Sophie is not going to understand everything, so as a reader, our view of these issues in the story should be simpler.

At the same time, I talk about the intensity of the story. And that means that as an older reader of the series, I understand some things that Sophie doesn’t. The story ages up well, that way. It makes the young reader start to think and the older reader understand the depth that is there.

Who is Keeper of the Lost Cities For?

I think that the young end would be twelve for the series. Though you maybe could go younger just reading it aloud and talking about what is going on. But that depends obviously on how you spend time. I don’t want to assume that people do a story that way. But twelve or thirteen is when I’d say a kid would be up for reading it.

As for getting older, it depends. I think a lot of people around my age and younger so mid-thirties and younger. The story is familiar. It feels a bit like Harry Potter, but in my opinion better. And my generation and younger, we read Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent, Maze Runner and more. Keeper of the Lost Cities contains all of that and more.

Final Thoughts

I love this series. I am reading a few other things right now, but I fully expect to come back to the series and read it all again. And I already pre-ordered the next book in the series. I want to know what is going to come next, and I want to spend more time with these characters in that world.

I really believe that a lot of people are going to enjoy this series as well. Like I said, the story is different, more meaningful than things it feels similar to. Yet it will hit the same beats that you expect from a Middle Grade or Young Adult series and novels. Plus there is a lot to the story, just in terms of how long the story is.

Have you read Keeper of the Lost Cities?

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Keeper of the Lost Cities – The Premise

Sophie Foster is not your normal 12 year old girl. She is extremely smart with a photographic memory. But more than that, she is a telepath. It is something that she’s had from a very young age and it’s definitely an annoyance. When her class is on a school trip to the science museum she spots a boy who is watching her. Not from her class, she goes and talks to him.

It turns out that the world she thought existed wasn’t quite what she thought it was. It is a whole lot bigger and she is part of that bigger picture. But what that means for her, as she moves from a world of humans to a world of magic and elves is the adventure she’s about to discover.

What Doesn’t Work?

I don’t find much fault with this series. Shannon Messenger does a really good job of writing this series. Yes, it most definitely is targeted towards the middle grade reader, but it doesn’t pull it’s punches. My only knock on the writing is that it can get a little bit preachy at times. Now, I say at times, in almost four full books, it’s maybe a handful of times. And these aren’t small books. It is more that you can feel the tone or style or writing shift when it happens.

Again, it isn’t much of the books. And it isn’t long sections of the book. Most of the time it is a paragraph of two. So compared to something like the Shannara Chronicles where it is the main focus through large chunks of the book, it doesn’t feel oppressive. It just isn’t blended into the series as well as it should be.

What Works?

Sophie Foster and Friends

There are a lot of things that work in the series. Again, no shock there, I really like the series. Let’s start out with the characters and in particular the main character, Sophie Foster. She is a well developed character. Her life gets turned on it’s head. And while she is most definitely excited about what is happening going forward, she also misses things. She has emotions and she has flaws and all of that gives her depth.

Is she a prototypical hero where things work out for her in the end, yes, generally. But the moments between, she struggles. I compare this series a bit to Harry Potter. Again, starting in middle grade and with magic, it is going to be an obvious comparison. In Harry Potter, he gets away with everything, Sophie gets away with almost nothing. When she does, there is always a cost.

Also, her friends work. A series that I don’t like, Divergent, had interesting side characters, for one book. They overshadowed the main character, so they became more boring. In Keeper of the Lost Cities, because Sophie has depth, the side characters have depth. I might still prefer some of the side characters to Sophie, but not by much. In Divergent it wasn’t even close, the side characters were that much better. This brings them all together in a way that makes them all different and interesting.

The Plot

The plot of all the books is good, that I’ve read thus far. But I mainly am talking about the first one right now. It is kind of a fish out of water story. Sophie Foster, obviously, doesn’t know the world she hasn’t lived in. So the first story is about her finding out about herself. Who she is, why she grew up in the human world. But there is more to the story than that. And Shannon Messenger does a good job of creating a middle grade reading level story that isn’t dumbed down.

It really comes out in further books in the series. But Sophie has a lot of tough stuff happen to her. Again, reading level appropriate, but not shying away from it. I feel like there are a lot of books that dumb it down for their target audience. The Keeper of the Lost Cities certainly does not do that. And the story is so much stronger for it. If it were dumbed down, I think my comment about characters wouldn’t exist.

That said, and this isn’t a negative, be aware of that. Sophie goes through a lot. For some readers, it might be too much at times. But this is also a series that adults will enjoy. So you, if thinking about it for a kid, and preread the first two books to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Who Is It For?

I want to address this as well, because I think some people will pass it by because it is middle grade. Did you like Harry Potter, I think this is better. Do you still like Harry Potter, I think you will like this. Keeper of the Lost Cities is a well written series, and while it might be lighter reading than what some people normally do, it is still good reading. So while I do recommend that adults maybe check it out to see how intense it gets, I think a lot will want to continue through the whole series.

That said, I know I am a sucker for fantasy. If you aren’t, again, you probably don’t like Harry Potter, this series isn’t likely to change it for you. And I think that some adults or readers outside of the age range, might find it too breezy a read. This is a summer read where you want to read something that has depth but a lot of fast action. Or in Minnesota a winter read, so you don’t stew in the fact it’s cold outside and snowing.

Keeper of the Lost Cities Final Thoughts

This is a really fun and addicting series. I like it when I pick up a series and I want to read the next book and then the next. The Great Library Series that I wrote about not too long ago was like this, but to a lesser extent. The Keeper of the Lost Cities keeps me coming back again and again. And they read so fast. It is one that I can pick-up and read and get far enough into the story in a few minutes that I just want to keep going.

So, like I said four or five times already, I really like this series. I think it works as a whole. There is enough depth to keep me interested. But it isn’t so heavy that I can’t speed through it and just absorb it as I go. For me, that is what I really love about a good book series, I just get so sucked into it, that I don’t ever want to leave. And the world created in Keeper of the Lost Cities, for me, is like that.

My Grade: 9/10

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The Great Library Premise

Jess is a book smuggler, his family as a whole are book smugglers, but that’s not what he loves. He loves to read books and learn. But due to the Library at Alexandria controlling all of the books, he doesn’t get read everything he wants and all knowledge is tightly controlled by the library. He ventures to the library to become a scholar so that he can help the family business. There he meets and interesting cast of characters as he studies and finds out that the library is not that good an organization. How can he and his fellow classmates and library counterparts work to take down this institution?

Initial Thoughts

The premise is not that unique, but it is unique at the same time. The idea that one area controls all knowledge is how some parts of the actual world work. But this takes it even further. It’s not just that all knowledge is controlled, it’s that your story, and your life, that information of it belongs to the library as well. And the library doesn’t want anyone else to know about certain things. And there is magic, but in an interesting and smaller way than something like Harry Potter.

Now, just because the library piece is interesting, this falls into that category of Divergent and The Hunger Games, where it is a small group against the big evil rulers. The plot is a bit simplistic that way. Caine does try and create two groups, the Library and the Burners who the protagonist has to deal with. Even the main character’s family being smugglers are another group that he bumps up again. But it is a tried and true, generally, plan for the plot.

What Doesn’t Work

Honestly, I don’t have too many complaints about the books. I think that compared to a lot of YA (young adult) fiction, that it works well. But that doesn’t mean that it is flawless. I think there are two things that have stood out to me, the biggest issue being the third book.

The second book ends on a cliffhanger. I won’t say what it is because that’ll give away part of the story and I don’t want to do that, I think it is a good series. But book three makes a key mistake in it, at least for me. When there is a cliffhanger, I want it resolved and then have the story progress. I don’t think the third book does that, it spends a long time working through the fallout of the cliffhanger, and the story just kind of stagnates. I get why that might be the case in how Caine writes it. We are getting our main introduction to a group of characters, but it’s too long and while stuff happens, it could have happened much faster.

The second part of book three is much stronger because the story progresses and progresses in a way that I really like. But that’s the last half or less of the book when it feels like the story progresses again. I think that book three just needed another pass by an editor to really tighten up the story, which would have probably made the book shorter, but it’d have felt like less of a slog to get through.

The other thing that bugged me and it isn’t a big deal, is she sets the time frame when this happens. That shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s kind of dumb. There is zero reason for this to be set at any time, and with the bits of text we get from “real” people who are writing against the library, we can generally place when this story must be happening. I think the issue for me is how she added it into the story, it was dropped at the end of a paragraph like it was a big reveal ,it most certainly wasn’t. That just felt wrong with how it was handled.

What Works

The characters in the series are good. I think that Jess is an interesting protagonist which is nice. Too many YA series give you a really flat main character. Or that main character who is too good at everything. Jess is good but he’s not always the best at anything. The cast of characters around him are good as well. Not more interesting than him, but as interesting, because often YA books have the side characters be more interesting. It’s also a diverse cast of characters in terms of gender, race, religion, and sexuality, but it’s done very naturally. So the story flows and feel real world like.

I also like books about books, so the library controlling everything is an interesting premise. It shows the twisting of the ideas of the library and how they have turned something that isn’t good. And it is done in a logical way, some books, Divergent, for example, creates a premise that doesn’t make any sense, it isn’t the logical end to any situation. But in The Great Library series, it makes sense, like I said, there are real world parallels with some areas of the world controlling knowledge.

And I like, generally the story progression, like I said, the third book loses me by spending too much time on generally the wrong things. It takes that cliffhanger and drags it out without feeling like we progress the story. But generally, Caine doesn’t do that. She also doesn’t information dump the history of everything or how the world and magic works in the world. You find that out as you need to find it out. In fact, you find out some of it as the characters find out about it. So it feels natural in how she is writing to how it works in the real world.

Final Thoughts On The Great Library

Obviously, I am not done with the series. There are five books in it, and that feels right for the series. Any longer and the story would drag out, and any shorter, say going the trilogy route, and the story would feel rushed. Maybe four books would have been ideal, because of my issues with book three. I own all the books, which says something about the series though. It means that it’s one that I might come back to.

I will say, that is my strong recommendation for this series. It’s well written, interesting enough premise, though not that unique, and compared to some others, such as Divergent which I would actively recommend people not read, I’d come back to this one gladly. If you want to read a well written YA series, this is going to be a solid one. It won’t likely blow you away, but it won’t likely disappoint either. If you’re not interested in reading YA, I wouldn’t recommend this series because it is what it is.

Have you read The Great Library Series by Rachel Caine? What are your thoughts on it?

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This is building off of my articles on where to start in comics and the article on zombies in pop culture. The format is going to continue to be a little bit different every time, mainly because it can be, but I want to talk about some things that have worked well and some that don’t work as well.

I think that we can all think of a lot of apocalyptic or post apocalyptic stories out there. About 5 years ago we had a lot of them being taken on in the Young Adult style with books series like The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze Runner. Some of these worked better and some were disappointments, at least for myself. Since then, the genre hasn’t really died off, we have Netflix putting out shows like Daybreak and The Rain where things are going horribly wrong or have gone horribly wrong in the world. The genre as a whole has kind of been all over the map though with a lot of goofy stories as well as many very serious takes on the genre as well.

Now, I’m not sure that any particular take is going to be always the right one. Some that take themselves too seriously become overwrought and melodramatic, while others can try and do a humorous take on it that just ends up being hit or miss. And there’s also an element where some authors are trying too hard to be profound on a topic that is going to lend itself to a lot of speculation.

Just to talk about speculation, I feel like there are two that I can kind of compare as to how one does it decently and the other does it poorly. In The Hunger Games, we have this idea of spectacle, and that humans, even when things are going poorly are going to want spectacle and probably even want more and greater spectacle, especially if they are at the top of the food chain. This is something that we can see already in our society where people love things like Survivor, or even before our time with the shows in the Roman Colosseum, so The Hunger Games has a feeling of something that is grounded and truthful to it. Compare that to Divergent. The issue with Divergent, besides that the story just takes a left turn that everyone saw coming is that they split up humanity and society in a way that doesn’t make any sense. At no point in time before has society split itself along those lines in such a way or tested people so that they would be split that way. It feels like an illogical jump for a society to make and one that doesn’t really aid the society in the long run. So even though, I would say, there is some overlap, the speculation and the ability for a post apocalyptic story to have a ring of truth to it makes a big difference.

Now, I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about how it’s moved into other mediums. It’s easy to think of books, films and TV shows, but in many ways it’s just as easy to think of video games. The Last of Us is a prime example of a post-apocalyptic game, and the Resident Evil games take place during or after the apocalypse. But probably less known to some, though obviously something I like, is how it’s made it’s way into board games. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 and Season 2 are basically board games about the apocalypse and the fallout from that. And it gives you an interestingly written story. Even a game like Dead of Winter, which I’ve mentioned in the zombie article, is definitely about survival after the apocalypse. While I don’t have a ton of post-apocalyptic games on my shelf, I have a lot that are about thwarting that great disaster from happening, basically all of the Lovecraft Mythos investigative games from Fantasy Flight fall into that category. In those games, Arkham Horror, Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition, Eldritch Horror, Elder Signs, you’re always trying to stop a great old one from coming through, or something along those lines. Even fantasy games like Gloomhaven, Sword & Sorcery, and Aeon’s End: War Eternal, while maybe not as heavily apocalyptic as some, have bits and pieces of that thrown in, especially if you fail the campaign.

Finally, there are RPG’s, and I think when it comes to a medium that is built for the apocalypse, RPG’s are that medium. Even if it hasn’t happened, the fact that you’re going on an adventure to do something, it’s going to be to stop something bad, and generally that’s some form the of the apocalypse for at least part of the world. And if you make it up to level 20, it’s probably for the whole world. In fact, one of the campaign books for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is Princes of the Apocalypse. There’s just something about the story of an malevolent god trying to destroy humanity and the player characters becoming humanities champions that just works well for a story. It’s one of those things where you can joke that it’s a story as old as time, but it works for so many reasons as it gives you that heroes journey and that final thing for them to overcome.

Well, that was kind of rambling, I had a lot that I wanted to talk about what I like from apocalyptic stories and why some of them don’t work as well if they ring a little hollow. Plus, I couldn’t go an article without talking about how it has flowed into the RPG and Board Game mediums. What are some of your favorite apocalyptic stories from whatever medium it might be?

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But though I spend a fair bit of time plotting future cosplays, it’s always a long time between events, and a lot of work ends up going into costumes that really, I’ll only spend a few hours wearing. As much as I enjoy going to cons and cosplaying, sometimes it’s fun to have something that I can get a little more mileage out of.

What am I talking about? Why, everyday cosplay, of course! Simply put, it’s a way to rep your favorite stories and characters during a normal day — to subtly (or not-so-subtly, if you choose) show your geeky pride, just for the sheer joy of it.

There are tons of ways to incorporate casual cosplay into a regular day–ways that go beyond just wearing a t-shirt with your favorite superhero on it (though that’s always great fun too). You can go subtle with clever jewelry, like this Divergent-inspired necklace:

Or a little bolder:

You can wear an accent piece that can be covered or shown at will:

Or go all out and put together an outfit inspired by your favorite character’s look:

And you can even take it one step further and decorate your house with nerdy swag:

These are just a few ways to incorporate fandom love into your everyday environment. Don’t wait until the next convention to bring the magic of your favorite stories to life in the real world — carry a little piece of that magic with you all day!

What’s your favorite way to engage in everyday cosplay? Share with us below!

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Protagonists

These are the good guys, the main characters of your story — for that reason, they are generally more developed than most other characters. But it still takes some work to write a compelling protagonist. It comes down to a bunch of questions that you have to ask about your character.

Let’s take the example of the “nobody-to-hero” story; it’s a great one for asking these questions.

Why is this character going on their quest? Is saving their town enough of a reason? Are they avenging their family? Or is there some other reason? Why do they continue? Look at The Lord of the Rings — Frodo’s journey was to the Council of Elrond. He didn’t know that, and he didn’t have to continue after that point — so why did he? What inspired him to continue to Mordor? Anything that the protagonist does needs to have more reasoning behind it than just that they are the protagonist. Good guys are never just good guys for the sake of it. The reasoning doesn’t have to be perfect all the time, and you can hand-wave once in a while and say, that’s just the way it is. But if you develop a world where the characters have reasons behind what they do, we’ll be more forgiving as readers.

Also, along with why the protagonist is doing their good thing, you also have to ask, what are their flaws? For an example of how this is done poorly (not in fantasy), we’ll look at Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The main character in the book has no real flaws. The author offers him one part way through the book, saying that the protagonist is claustrophobic, but it is dealt with almost immediately, so that it isn’t an issue. While claustrophobia is a problem, it’s not a true character flaw, and the story needed to have more character development for and more issues with the main character than that. Another example of what not to do is in Divergent. The main characters flaws of the protagonist are generally that she’s small and clumsy. Those don’t have anything to do with her character, and they can hardly even be seen as flaws. So when you are writing a story, ask yourself, what are my character’s personality flaws?

If you have a character who has issues, and who has a reason for going on their quest, then you’ll start to have a story with real depth. But it can’t stop there. If Frodo had been the only character with depth in The Lord of the Rings, it would have been a really poor trilogy. But every character in the Fellowship goes through their own story and growth. Sam was loyal to a fault to Frodo. Pippin and Merry went from fun-loving Hobbits to making serious decisions and going into battle. As you write, think about your side character’s motivations and arcs as well.

Now, there is an issue that often arises with this. It is very possible and fairly easy to get too far into the weeds. These side characters, while important and in need of depth, are not the main character unless it is truly an ensemble cast of characters. There aren’t that many stories like that, and even in the world of comic books and comic book movies, we mainly see The Avengers as an example of this style. While that is an ensemble cast of characters, it tends to focus in on different characters at different points in time. In Age of Ultron, there was a very strong focus on the rift developing between Captain America and Tony Stark, but Hawkeye was there to bring them all back together. So even if you go with an ensemble of characters, stay fairly focused. Don’t get lost in the weeds making everyone have a massive amount of story. If they have a reason for doing the things they do, that is enough backstory.

And one last piece of advice — don’t be afraid to kill off your good characters. Too often in shows and books, you know early on who is going to die and who isn’t. If it’s a side character who is friends with the main protagonist but you don’t write them as a believable character, we know that they are going to die early on, and the character has lost credibility. Every character, no matter who they are, needs to be a credible character in the world you’ve created. And depending on your world, sometimes you have to show that the world is dangerous. You don’t need to take it to George R. R. Martin levels where you are killing off every character, but making the reader worry about the characters can add depth and realism to your story.

So now that you’ve started telling the story and have an idea for your plot, sit down and think about the reasoning behind your main character’s actions, and why they would jump into the story you are going to tell. What is the important piece of backstory that is going to develop your protagonist into something more than a cardboard cutout?

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