2 out of 4 stars
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The Prisoner of Zurenda by Kent A. LeFevre is a mythological fantasy set in Ancient Greece shortly after the fall of Troy. Arjun, a young survivor of the Trojan War, discovers that he is a demigod, the son of Selene, the goddess of the moon. Selene wants Arjun to confront the demigoddess Zurenda, who has stolen the island of Piperi and desecrated Selene's temple. Fortunately, Arjun does not have to attempt the quest alone. Two friends come with him from the start, and he makes new friends that help him on his journey.
Opening the review copy of the book, I was excited to see a book that was well-formatted and very attractive with medallion images at the end of the chapters. I dove into the book right away, eager to enjoy the story. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that the book did not seem like it was professionally edited. There were problems with punctuation and word choices that would have likely been resolved with some simple grammar editing. Additionally, the story could use editing for flow and clarity. At times, the writing seemed choppy, and I occasionally found myself confused by some of the things that were happening.
As a fan of mythology, I really enjoyed the plot and setting of the book. It was fun to read about some gods and goddesses that did not feature as strongly in the old myths. LeFevre tells a good, clean story that works well for a young adult audience. Arjun and his closest friends are still in their teens, and even though they acted like teens, they were the sort of teens that could handle responsibility reasonably well. Chapters were generally short and acted like scenes from a film which kept the story moving at a good pace. Scene changes also gave me the opportunity to understand a bit about all of the characters, encouraging me to love the heroes and dislike the villains. Even though characters were not terribly complex, I found characters to both love and despise, much like many of the old Greek myths.
While I enjoyed the book as a whole, I struggled with many of the anachronisms that were used throughout the book. Modern slang was frequently used, and there were references to things such as a hard-wired communication and a washing machine. Instead of feeling modern and intentional, much of this felt out of place and like an accident. The one place where this worked was when several characters visited the underworld, a common enough activity in mythological works. Anachronistic elements made sense here because they were highlighted in a way to point out to the reader how strange the underworld is. I felt that this book wanted to be like Homer's Oddyssey with the flair of a Percy Jackson novel, but it just did not have quite enough spunk to pull it off.
While I enjoyed the book, I will only give The Prisoner of Zurenda 2 out of 4 stars. From a story standpoint, I would say that it has earned 3 stars, but it loses one for the editing issues I noted. A good edit for both grammar and flow could take this book to a 3 or even 4-star level. I would recommend the book to younger readers that enjoy mythological fantasy and perhaps are not too concerned about character development.
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The Prisoner of Zurenda
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Like Kendra M Parker's review? Post a comment saying so!
I would definitely still give it a try if I come across a copy, I certainly hope that I enjoy it too! Thank you for replying!
