GRIM NORA and the Secret of the Skull

The author sent my thirteen year old grandson, Kai, an autographed copy of her novel to review:

Grim Nora starts off very strange. Right off the bat, the first paragraph starts with Nora’s father already dying on her sixteenth birthday. After being late to her birthday celebration with her friends at the Yggdrasil Coffee Shop, she is approached by a odd figure who asks about the strange skull-shaped pocket watch that her father gave to her before his mysterious death. To make Nora’s birthday worst for her, she soon discovers that her boyfriend, Connor, is cheating on her.

While walking home depressed, Nora realizes that she is being followed. She tries to lose him, but the man is soon sprinting after her. Nora ducks into an alleyway, but she is discovered. The man turns into a horrible beast and tries to take her pocket watch off her. Luckily, the beast is fought off by the owner of the coffee shop that she was just at. From here on, Nora’s life will not ever be the same.

Overall, this fantasy YA novel by A.M. Albaugh was very good, except for one thing. In my opinion, at the end of the novel, there are too many things that are concluded that I think should have been saved for another novel. For this reason the novel just misses a five star rating. I would give it a 4.5 star rating if I could. I would recommend this YA novel to the 12 to 18 age group.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I noticed that as Kai gains experience reviewing YA/fantasy novels, he has become a tad stingy in the five star rating department. Once you’ve read many similar type novels, you start forming opinions on what you like or dislike. That’s when a reviewer stops “rubber stamping” every novel that he/she reads with five stars.