The Rogue Knight (Five Kingdoms #2) by Brandon Mull (Awesome)

The Rogue Knight is the second book in the Five Kingdoms Series, the first book being Sky Raiders.  I loved both books immensely.  Brandon Mull did it again.  He is an amazing author who I've enjoyed reading basically everything from.  My favorite series from him is the Beyonders series (link to information of the first in that series), closely followed by Fablehaven and Candy Shop War.  His books tend to have this strange characteristic of sounding absolutely terrible and goofy, at least until you start reading and engaging with the story.

I'll post a really tiny review I wrote of Sky Raiders before I move on. (For more information, follow the link to Sky Raider's Goodreads page)
Review:
While probably meant for twelve year old boys, I loved Sky Raiders. It was unique and awesome. I love Brandon Mull and everything he does (writing-wise anyway). He even got a lot of points for making the book's epigraph lyrics from the Killer's song Dustland Fairytale. It is full of great comebacks, irony, exciting plot points, cool characters, and a surprisingly large amount of slavery (possibly too much slavery).  I enjoyed reading it and highly recommend for you to as well.

Back to The Rogue Knight.  For this point on, there may be spoilers for the first book, sorry!

The Cover:

The Cover:
It shows the Rogue Knight swinging at Cole and Mira with his sword.  Meanwhile, Cole attempts to defend Mira and himself with his Jumping Sword which is glowing.

Official Description:
Cole Randolph never meant to come to The Outskirts, but when his friends were kidnapped on Halloween he had to try and save them. Now he's trapped in a world that lies between wakefulness and dreaming, reality and imagination, life and death.
Cole's search for his friends has led him to Elloweer, another of the five kingdoms that make up The Outskirts. He's accompanied by Mira, Twitch, and Jace, new friends he's met here in the Outskirts who each have their own important missions.
The group is following news that Mira's sister, Honor, could be in danger. However, Cole and Mira are soon the ones facing direct threat, and must resort to a fascinating new kind of magic to protect themselves. Their journey brings them across familiar faces, some more welcome than others, until their paths ultimately cross with the infamous man known throughout Elloweer as the Rogue Knight.
Will he turn out to be an unstoppable enemy, or a key ally?
Every move is filled with danger as Cole and his new friends try and outwit the High Knig, who will stop at nothing to regain what he has lost.

My Review:
I really enjoyed reading The Rogue Knight.  I was constantly surprised by where the story was going and was completely caught off guard by one key plot twist.  This novel was beautifully written, creative, and even very funny at times.  It was a perfect sequel to Sky Raiders and picked up right where the last book left off.  It was a fast-paced and easy read for all ages.

I loved the characters in this series for the most part.  For example, I loved the returning characters (Mira, Cole, Jace, Twitch, etc.) even more during Rogue Knight but I found some of the new characters a little bit irritating.  (However, my annoyance with them might not have been entirely with them but with the altering of the previous characters' dynamics.)  Either way, there was plenty of character development that occurred during this book, as well as really amusing banter.  Who doesn't love a good comeback? or some excessive sarcasm?

I loved all of the plot lines of The Rogue Knight! Seemingly unconnected circumstances would slowly connect themselves as I was reading, conquering up a puzzle board that slowly pieced itself together.  Yet still a few pieces are missing.  Even more reason to continue the series as it comes out. (The following book is Crystal Keepers out this March.)

The Rogue Knight was a great installment in the Five Kingdoms series, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has read Sky Raiders, which I would, in turn, recommend to everyone.  Both were exciting reads with complex characters and lots of fun.

The Rogue Knight comes out November 18, 2014

Phrase:
Brady's Wilderness

*Note: This book was given to me by Aladdin through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review*

The Arcade Catastrophe by Brandon Mull (Good)

Sorry that I haven't written anything in such a long time...  I've been a little preoccupied.

The author also wrote the Fablehaven series and the Beyonders.  Anyway, this book is the sequel to the Candy Shop War.  I'll be the first to admit that it sounds pretty stupid but it was a pretty nice story.  A short summary is that a couple kids get caught in the middle of a war between magicians.  They can help using magical candy that does anything from reducing gravity to convincing people that you are doing the right thing.  So that's a super brief summary.  Look it up to see if that's the kind of thing you want to read.  I read it a couple years ago so it might be slightly more kiddish than I remember.  I'll let you decide.

Okay. Back to the Arcade Catastrophe.  The Cover:

I honestly have no idea what's going on on the cover.  What's up with the Spinx?  I don't know.  I also don't know why Summer is flying and Nate is running super fast.  It doesn't make sense.  There's some kid by the base of the statue that's like a chameleon.  Which I don't think happened throughout any part of the book.  Either way, not my favorite cover.

The Summary:  Nate, Summer, Pigeon, Trevor, and their new friend Lindy hear that John and the magician police man, Mozag, have disappeared, and it all leads back to an arcade in Walnut Hills where its biggest prizes are stamps.  The kids start earning stamps for themselves to better find a way to free their friends.  The stamps are tickets for the competition of the century.  They reveal a plot that could very well destroy the entire world, lead by none other than Jonas White, Mrs. White's brother.

I enjoyed it.  It had a nice plot and characters.  It was a bit predictable, for example you could tell which group would win each contest just because of the importance of the characters.  I might have just been good at predicting but some of the things seemed a bit obvious.

Another slight problem was that two or three times there would be a page or two where the writing tone didn't quite match up, and I felt like someone was trying to teach me a lesson, which I didn't appreciate.  I wouldn't have minded but it just didn't fit in.  For example *minor spoiler. It doesn't effect the plot just an irrelevant page or two*  The characters had just done some adventurous thing and they were going to go home for the night when randomly Trevor asked what he should get his mom for her birthday.  Then they discussed how you should use a coupon book but be sure to actually be able to do the things you put in it.  It was completely unnecessary and the whole tone of that page didn't match up.  It was like they wanted to teach me how to give gifts. *spoiler off*

With all that in mind, I would still recommend this book, especially if you like the first book, since they are very similar.  It's not one of those books that if someone asked me to recommend a book to them would pop to the front of my mind.

All in all a nice book with a nice plot intended for younger kids.

Thanks for reading, as always feel free to comment if you would like.