YA Book Review: The Marked Girl by Lindsey Klingele

Title: The Marked Girl

Author:  Lindsey Klingele

Series: The Marked Girl #1

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Publisher: Harper Collins 

Pub Date: June 7, 2016

Pages: 400

My Copy: ARC that I got at ALAMW

Book Summary:

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Los Angeles)…

When Cedric, crowned prince of Caelum, and his fellow royal friends (including his betrothed, Kat) find themselves stranded in modern-day L.A. via a magical portal and an evil traitor named Malquin, all they want to do is get home to Caelum—soon. Then they meet Liv, a filmmaker foster girl who just wants to get out of the system and on with her life. As she and Cedric bond, they’ll discover that she’s more connected to his world than they ever could’ve imagined…and that finding home is no easy task… 

Book Review:

The Marked Girl is one of the most interesting debuts of the year. I totally found myself falling in love with Cedric and Liv as characters and their friends, relatives are definitely interesting. What I like is how Cedric and Liv have to adjust to something that neither of them can expect.

What I like is that we start off in Caelum and we learn that Cedric is in a whole lot of trouble. He is a prince running from this creature that they call wraith’s which are pretty disgusting to look at. Somehow he and his companions, one of which is his betrothed Kat, find themselves in our world. This is quite a sight for all of them to take in. Sometime later Cedric bumps into Liv literally at a museum that she works at/volunteers.

Liv is a young woman who has always been struggling to find a place where she belongs. She remembers losing her parents at an early age in a supposed fire. Some crazy things happens once she meets Cedric and learns that there is another world that runs parallel to ours. So of course this leads to many things happening. She finds out that there are things that have happened in her life. 

We learn that Liv has markings on her back and she doesn’t know what they mean until she sees something from Cedric’s world that makes her think, why and how is she connected to this world. Liv and Cedric along with their friends learn through various scholars, some fanatical cult members, that the scrolls were put on human beings for very nefarious reasons and that the fanatical cult have been killing them to prevent portals being opened. Bad things or creatures can come through the portals if someone figures out who the human scrolls are. Liv happens to be one of them. We also learn that her brother and sister are ones as well.

This book was filled with lots of monsters, creatures, magic. I really like how the mythology and all of the characters need to work together to figure out how to open a portal safely without causing mayhem and creatures to come through. Liv reunites with her brother and sister. We find that there are things that Liv didn’t know about her marks or why they were given to her. These people who are the human scrolls are important. They need all three of them to really do some damage, but with two human scrolls they can open a portal, but it’s not always a stable  thing to do.

I like the crazy twists and risks that some of our characters take. It makes them seem more real. How they make things change for themselves. They all decide that sometimes the only way to survive is to risk it all. I really enjoyed how Liv is now in a different place or world at the end of the book. It really will be interesting see how things go from here.

This was a good first book in a new YA Series.

Rating:

Four Hearts