Should Never Have Been Written

The original Unwanted Series was a really fantastic example of young fantasy fiction, but this spin-off series should honestly never have been written. I thought the first one was lacklustre, and don’t get me started on the character assassination of Alex Stowe - but this one has essentially ruined the original series for me.

Thisbe and Fifer have none of the complexity of their older brothers, and have very little except their hair length to tell them apart - they’re just cardboard-cutouts that are miraculously able to do spells that everyone else, even their brothers, took months to learn. Seth might as well be a rock with a face painted on him (oh wait, the rock with a face on it was actually a more interesting character), and Dev is just thoroughly unlikeable. Lisa McMann has committed one of the ultimate sins, IMO, and forced her players out of character in order to facilitate the plot she wants to write. She is not letting the characters breathe and move on their own. And it seems all her previous characters are being thrown under the bus just to “create” a story for Thisbe and Fifer.

I was still listening in hopes of a turnaround, but the ending to this book has torn it. These are supposedly suitable for 8-10 year olds, but in my opinion killing off the lead of the previous series is not suitable for kids. At all. I might think differently in some circumstances, but this smacks of repetition because she’s run out of ideas.

“The Unwanteds” - the original seven books - were really quite exceptional, and should be left that way. If you’ve yet to read them, and want to, do yourself a favour and leave off the series at “The Island of Dragons”. That was the proper end for this story. This is just money-spinning for the sake of it, with nothing of worth left to say.

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