The last sanctuary

P.S Mohka

Wednesday 19th june 2013



I first read this book at the suggestion of my friends and teachers. I hoped it to be an interesting world to delve into and that belief proved correct although it took a small while for me to sink my teeth into completely .I finished this book within a day do in that respect it was not a difficult to read , helped by the generally simplistic writing style which most young adult books contain and which suits the age that it is aimed towards. Adm

The last sanctuary

P.S Mohka

Wednesday 19th june 2013



I first read this book at the suggestion of my friends and teachers. I hoped it to be an interesting world to delve into and that belief proved correct although it took a small while for me to sink my teeth into completely .I finished this book within a day do in that respect it was not a difficult to read , helped by the generally simplistic writing style which most young adult books contain and which suits the age that it is aimed towards. Admittedly I myself tend to read more classically written books and haven’t really read this type of book in a long while ( i went through this phase about two years ago )however it was a very pleasant way to re-introduce myself to the genre of myth and fantasy and young adult novels



One of the aspects that I liked about the book was that although moments of gruesomeness were uncommon they were sprinkled throughout like little easter eggs. I don’t like horror but I like torture and the idea that the characters of the blood Empress and the girls school headmaster like to be rather giving in their punishments (of which we only see in after affects from the latter).

Another thing that greatly amused me in this book was the name of the flying pig – dubbed Pigusus .I enjoy puns so this was greatly entertaining for me and I will admit that every-time I read the name I smiled . I love puns even stupid and the names in this book are just hilarious.



I will admit that when the prophecy is first revealed it crossed my mind that one of the girls could die and then be revived and in the end it was said that this may be possible .This is one example of the instances where I could see the plot twists happening .Another instance is that of their beloved caretaker/cleaning lady being the scorpion however I will concede that this is a childrens book and not a novel like the Les Miserables and as such it is more that I have read so much that I could tell versus the book being bad .It is far from being bad it is rather intriguing and the foreshadowing is not annoying.

I do not like annoying foreshadowing like that found in other books and this book has the great and rare ability to foreshadow without it becoming really irritating to me. It also seems to hold another world where there seems a large history. I would probably have enjoyed a small larger overview of the history which is only revealed as a tool to help with plot points and background. The book is fine without this extra history and it would probably encourage me to read the next book as a way of developing a deeper understanding of the history and possibly even biology of the other world and the creatures that lie within that world respectively.

One concept that I thought rather interesting was that the world was made by dragons and yet the balancer-person ( Evagaya) is that of human. I personally side with the dragon of destruction-the red one, and the Empress of blood ( who I know is actually the Blood empress but the empress of blood sounded better in my head and that's how i read it ) I mean I see why it is wrong to destroy a race, such thing is genocide and it isn't something I would personally recommend doing, but I think she would be a very interesting character.I know that she is suppose to represent evil but why she was “evil” to begin with fascinates me. She wanted to be good but she was chosen to be evil and so was. She made the spine crawlers, that takes some intelligence at least I imagine it would as if she made them badly someone would of unmade them . that is unless all the others are idiots which I could totally see.

The main theme seems to be love, something I do not believe in and find annoying in most books as it is mostly portrayed as romantic love. While that is present in the book (in Lilys' grandparents) it is not in such an overwhelming way that I would stop reading .

I did find that sometimes it was hard to remember that the three main characters are twelve because in some way they are very mature however throughout the book there are occasions where I remembered that they were twelve. I liked that they were intelligent twelve year olds and not stupid ones because my brother is twelve and he would, well he’d probably kill them all with a gun but, not act as they did. I myself would have tried to throw nuclear hand grenades at them because it seems to me that the wizards had no contact and didn't know much about human technology. Then again this is just my personal head canon as it wasn't really confirmed and all but then it wasn't really not confirmed so I may have to wait until the next book to find out .

Also another little theory I have is that even though the prophecy goes one to give one to live and one to die, it was sort of the one to die book so maybe the prophecy will work backwards and we will find out the one to live in the next book or maybe it’s all twisted and we will find out the one to give except the one to give is the one that balances and that seems to be the most important one so maybe it will be last. Of course all of these maybes are probably completely off but I like to imagine. Another little theory I have is that the dragons aren't actually responsible for creation rather they are very powerful magical beings and as such all the other magical beings look up to them. Actually that brings me to a question. What is magic. How does magic work. How does saying words while holding a magical wand give you wings and what is the magical wand even made out of. Also if all the three girls are fairy's ( or two out of three) how is that a fair representation of all the magical species. Why can’t a goblin be the breathed on , do they have dragon breath resistant skin or are they just not really a part of the whole thing. Also why do those who have these extra special powers live so long and what does a book have to do with dragons. I mean surely if everything is created by these dragons they aren’t going to create a book that will give lesser beings the power to control them. Or was it the balancer who decided you know what I can control them lets let someone else. OR maybe the successors of the balancer has to find the book and that’s how she appoints her successor. Also how were spine crawler made . It says in the books that the headmistressess' mother was part of their creation but how????



I see that my review for this book is extremely long and more of a rant then a review however i will say this. Although i read the book in a day it was because i was interested and the book was a decent enough book to keep me occupied.It wasn't boring and it wasn't horribly written which is more then i can say for some other books that seem to be popular despite a horrible characters and plot -The others books not this one . the characters fleshed out a little and the plot was busy enough to keep me interested. I would recommend it , even to those who are used to a more complex style of book , I read it so why not you. It is very innocence and childlike and Happy and despite my initial reaction of "well this is boring" it turned out that this book wasn't so boring after all .



Well done Mr.Mohka as you have successfully written the first book that i have actually read for about a month , and thats a lot harder then it sounds because i generally don't find decent books to read and this surprised me in being a decent book . It has decent character development , decent plot a decent length and a very decent writing style. It was satisfactory and not boring