(9)The Search for WondLa // Bookish Blurb

The Search for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi

This is  YA sci-fi book. We have our main character (12 year old Eva Nine) who has been raised underground by Muthr (a very life-like robot) without contact with anyone else. She is forced to leave her home and ventures into the world in search of other humans.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s definitely solidly in that middle grade level where the story is mostly about adventure and friendship. Also I LOVED the whole world that we are in. I don’t usually read a lot of sci-fi since it tends to get way too techy for me and all ‘robots and aliens’ but this book wasn’t that way at all. It kind of reminded me of a Miyazaki film (minus the airplanes) mixed with something else (other people have compared it to Star Wars…). Maybe this isn’t as sciency as some sci-fi so maybe it’s closer to fantasy but technology is definitely prevalent even if it is ‘outdated’ kind of (read the book and you’ll understand). Also Eva has a ton of technology which is helping to keep her alive (her clothes track her body temperature and so forth).

Also can we talk about the illustrations?! All of the chapters (and there are a lot of them) have an illustrated page at the beginning which are beautiful and helped me visualize some of the fantastical creatures of this world.

I found Eva a very solid main character. She’s impulsive and brave and definitely imperfect but ultimately very loyal and kind of funny.

My biggest problem with this book is probably that it was part of a series. As such, it does kind of end on a cliff-hanger but the subplot of this book does wrap itself up. Also I can’t seem to get a hold of the second book (but I can get the third one) so I might have to read them out of order. Also it looks like it’s only a trilogy so it’s not going to be dragging out forever.

If you enjoy middle-grade adventure books and interesting creatures and beautiful pictures, I would definitely try and get my hands on this book. Also this is quite a long book (over 400 pages) but it’s really easy read (again, meant for middle schoolers) and I found it gripping enough so that I wanted to keep going but chill enough that I was able to put it down when I needed to.

A note about the author: he has also written a number of other books including co-authoring the Spiderwick Chronicles (which I never read but definitely knew about).

The Search for WondLa on Amazon

#9 of 2017