For the third time, Soneela Nankani narrates the adventures of Aru Shah. She will again please listeners with the fast-paced dialogue, wit, clever references, humor, and dynamics of 14-year-old Aru and her friends, Mini, Brynne, and Adin. Nankani adds to Aru’s crew of three (and her repertoire) with the arrogance and flaws of Rudy, a serpent prince. In the midst of seeking a wish-granting tree, Aru and her friends take on a quest to rescue a clairvoyant twin from the clutches of Sleeper. Nankani represents Aru’s mix of feelings about her father as smoothly as she negotiates the Hindu-drawn world of gods and creatures and the non-stop action. S.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
★ 2020-04-04
In the third instalment of the Pandava Quartet, 14-year-old Arundhati “Aru” Shah and her companions need to defeat their archnemesis (and Aru’s father), the Sleeper, and prevent the impending war between the devas and asuras.
The novel opens with Aru and her friends on a mission to rescue two people from the Sleeper’s soldiers. The two people are 10-year-old identical twins and Pandavas Nikita and Sheela, trapped atop a Ferris wheel in downtown Atlanta. This mission is of utmost importance because Sheela is a clairvoyant with an important prophecy, which speaks of the rise of the Sleeper and an untrue Pandava sister—and which the Sleeper must not hear at any cost. Despite their best efforts, however, one of the Sleeper’s soldiers overhears the prophecy, and Aru, Mini, Brynne, and Adin—accompanied by Rudy, a serpent prince—set off to find the missing Kalpavriksha, a wish-granting tree, so that they might wish upon it to set things right. Much like its predecessors, this fast-moving adventure draws on Hindu cosmology and South Asian pop-culture references to create an enchanting but believable magical Otherworld, where gods, demigods, demons, and talking animals abound. Chokshi’s novel is pitch perfect: The plot is action-packed, the dialogue witty, and the characters (almost all of whom are either Indian or part-Indian) are compelling, diverse, and complex.
Touching, riotously funny, and absolutely stunning. (Fantasy. 10-14)
