Book Review: Call of the Soul Animals by Andreas Suchanek (Magic Island #1)

 

 

Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Magic Island #1: Ruf der Seelentiere.

This one looked interesting to me. Spoilers ahead.

Julian is a boy with anger issues who one day gets called away through a portal onto a magical island. Here, he learns that the island is in peril, and that only he and four other kids who were called to the island can save it by becoming true heroes. Julian also learns that he is connected to his Soul-bonded animal, a husky named Askan.

This is one of these books where I like the concept more than the execution. There are certainly good and interesting concepts here. I love the world-building of the magical island, for example. It was definitely a setting I'd like to visit if it were real, and I liked figuring out some of the secrets, backstory and mysteries of the island alongside our leads.

The climax was also quite gripping and especially the cliffhanger ending had me hooked.

But I do have major issues holding me back from truly enjoying this book. For one, I couldn't really get into the characters. They just felt kinda uninteresting to me and especially the non-Julian deuteragonists like Aiko, Kiano and Lani were just okay but nothing really groundbreaking. I also just didn't really feel a true connection between these characters, our four heroes, like I'd hoped. I didn't really feel that they became a true unit of close-knit friends by the end of this book. Also, the connections between the heroes and their Soul Animals (such as Askan the husky and Timur the dragon) didn't feel particularly strong, either. Especially since we're in Julian's POV, I was hoping that he and Askan would develop a really strong bond throughout the story. But instead I never really bought their connection as being very genuine. 

So yeah, mixed on this one. I guess I liked it okay, but I don't think I'll be reading more of this series. 

Rating: 3/5 

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