Book Review: Simon Thorn and the Shark's Cave by Aimée Carter (Simon Thorn #3)

 

Book three. Spoilers ahead!

Simon and his friends travel to the underwater realm where they meet Jam's family. Simon hopes to be able to collect the next piece of the wand here, to secure it from Orion. But things prove more difficult than initially thought. Jam's family is strict; Orion is still out and about, ready to strike; and there seems to be a traitor in their midst. Who will find the piece of the wand first?

Overall another solid installment in the series. It has a lot of good things going for it like the last books, such as creative world-building and a cast of interesting characters. This time around I also thought the character writing was really well done. While none of these characters are that unique for a YA fantasy book series, they're still fun to follow and you do care for them. 

If I do have a gripe, aside from the usual "Orion is a bland villain" I mentioned in my previous reviews, it's that the twist of the traitor wasn't super well build up. Not terribly, either, but the revelation who it was just kinda came out of nowhere without much buildup to them being the culprit. A good twist is one where the audience can clue in on it just enough for it not to come completely out of left field, but one that also keeps you guessing. And this one just was a bit too abrupt a twist for this character for me. It's also not like Pearl (the culprit) was in the book for much for the reader to get a good grasp on her character. She's just there in a few scenes and then suddenly she's the traitor.

I also do gotta say that, while this is purely subjective, I really couldn't get into the setting of this one as much. But that's easy to see why: it takes place in and around an ocean, which is just basically my least favorite setting. I've never been that into a marine-based setting so that's why I couldn't get into it as much. But I'm sure this won't bother most people and it was admittedly pretty cool to have the main setting be Atlantis of all places. But despite that pretty cool concept it just wasn't really a setting that appealed to me.

Overall this was still a great installment, though. Do recommend it if you like the first few books. Just don't expect Orion to be an interesting villain yet, because he still isn't. 

Rating: 4/5