"Keeper of the Lost Cities" Review

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger is a middle learning level series, but I think that anyone who likes fantasy books would enjoy it. I read Keeper of the Lost Cities because of a friend's recommendation, and I love it. The book follows the main character, a powerful telepath, named Sophie Foster, and her journey through the lost cities after she learns she is an elf from another telepath she meets on her school field trip.

Throughout the books, Sophie meets new friends including an empath named Keefe and a fellow telepath named Fitz. Throughout the series, there is a subtle love triangle between the three of them with both Keefe and Fitz fighting over her, and I don’t like that. While in the book, Keefe has said that she is not an object for the two of them to fight over, I still feel like that’s what’s happening, and I don’t like it. 

One part of the book that I particularly like is the way that the book does touch on issues without going too much into them. It discusses kinds of discrimination but in subtle ways. The elves in the book discriminate against twins and having too many children, it examines that some kinds of discrimination are dumb sometimes. The book also discusses kinds of anxiety, in which the main character is sometimes so anxious and stressed that she’ll cry a lot, stop sleeping, and sometimes stop eating. There was a brief time in the sixth book that she stopped feeling anything and just shut down completely. The biggest issue the book touches on is bad parents. Multiple characters throughout the book have parents that don’t care about them or send them away.

I like the adventures in the book, as they keep me engaged in the story. Throughout the series, Sophie and her friends battle an evil organization called the Neverseen. There are a lot of twists and turns that get thrown in their way and I love that about the books. 

Overall, I think that Keeper of the Lost Cities is a really good series that someone who wants to read something light would enjoy. The ninth book in the series is being released this November, and I am very excited to read it.          

By Kymbree Ogle-Forbes