Jun 28, 2014

Book Review: The Eye of Tanub by M.E. Cunningham


The Eye of Tanub
by M.E. Cunningham

The Eye of Tanub is a very unique book. The story is about two siblings, Zach and Lauren. One day, while they are fighting over a mysterious necklace, they get transported into one of Zach's role playing video games. Their journey to Terratir, from the moment they land there till the very end is full of adventure. In order to get back home, they have to team up with some of the characters of the game and find the Eye of Tanub, while trying to stay alive from the attacks of the Warlord's army.

The premise of this book had me picking it up the day it got released. I love video games, especially role playing ones, I had my days (and nights) of being a gamer and Terratir missed nothing of a good fantasy world. The weird creatures, the different races, the magestic towns, the myths and history and the varying terrains, made a good set for the adventurous of our main characters, and trust me this book has a lot of action packed moments, that make it a very fast read.

So, what went wrong with this read? For me the main flaw of this book were its characters. I never got to relate to any of them, even Zach who was my favourite one. We never get to learn that much about them. We get to hear their stories and parts of their pasts, but still I felt like I never got to know their essence. Their behaviour seemed kind of off, I never knew if what they did was out of character or not, because I never witnessed part of their character. They only two people who were a constant on the book were Zach and his sister Lauren. Zach, I didn't mind so much, he was a curious 14-year-old boy who had just traveled inside his video game. He was excited and frightened and kind of silly, like a normal 14-year-old boy. But his sister...OH MY GOD. She was annoying as hell. In the beginning I thought she had started out as a spoiled bart only to redeem herself by the end of the book, but she didn't, even though in her own mind she wasn't a jerk anymore. I didn't see that change at all. Throughout the whole book she was immature and acted like a brat. And what bothered me the most was that she thought she wasn't and that her little brother was the immature one. And don't get me started on her love interest... Why was there even a love interest? This book would have been so much better without it.

Overall, this was a fun adventure book that at times made me want to slap my kindle screen but had its redeaming fighting scenes, just not enough to make me give it a bigger rating. I believe it's a good recommendation for people that love role playing games and are probably teenagers.

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