Lizzie Wilcock

Sounds like another good sci-fi novel...
Score: Six points out of ten.

This was one of the most confusing novels I've ever seen, and I didn't even get the novel or its concept. The two main characters, Annie and Mac, were irritating at times, and other than having water abilities like in Avatar: The Last Airbender, they had no other characteristics or character development. The other six kids, Douglas, Kyla, Zephyr, Endellion, Rhea, and Ajax, only had one attribute: they had fire, air, and earth powers, and that's it. Douglas was used as subpar comic relief, but that didn't improve the story. It's all action and no world-building. The antagonists, Dr Sinclair and Rufus Keller VI were over the top and hard to believe, and also, how did the Madkrazes know that the world was going to end precisely on the 20th/21st of September in the 2010s? Now, I am in 2023, and this novel aged like milk.

The way the world ended was so unrealistic I couldn't even wrap my head around it. It was not a zombie apocalypse, nuclear war, natural disasters, or climate change. The reason was an exploding moon from Neptune's orbit called Octavian that stopped everyone but 11 people's hearts from beating and ended the world. It also sent shockwaves that activated the eight kids "elements" and, suddenly, they now have elemental and time-travelling powers. They were born on the same day and have the same birthmark, and if you thought this was a massive coincidence, you were wrong! What's with the book's obsession with the number eight? Some places like Burning Hill and Compass Hut were arranged in an octagon, and the portals are also all octagons. This is not a coincidence. It was a part of the plot that I found weird. Conveniently, all the kids had access to the Internet to discover the next clue in the wild goose chase, and the book ended on a cliffhanger. Great! How should I know what happens next since the library does not have the second book? If you like sci-fi stories, this is the book for you.… (more)