Review: Frozen Secrets (Europa Academy, #1)

Author: Myles Christensen
Started reading: January 24th 2020
Finished the book: February 19th 2020
Pages: 298
Genres: Science Fiction, Middle Grade
Published: January 25th 2020
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads score: 4.23
My score:

Synopsis

Thirteen-year-old Max Parker is a grounded Earthling with the soul of a space explorer. So when he learns his family is relocating to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, he readily agrees to stay out of trouble. But his promise is soon forgotten, and his snooping lands him on a shuttle doomed for a fiery disintegration.

Convinced someone sabotaged the craft to cover up the theft he witnessed, Max digs into the incident. What else could they be hiding? Dodging a series of deadly accidents, he follows the clues to an abandoned outpost and discovers a secret that could blow the lid off a moon-wide conspiracy. Can he solve the mystery before his interplanetary escapade gets him killed?

My thoughts

This is a nice Middle Grade story taking place in space. The aspect of friendship was one of the things I liked most. There were some things, in my opinion, that needed a bit of work, but I'm sure that this is a great debut for Myles Christensen. I can easily picture the kids in my classroom devouring this book.

Pros

• Space: The idea of people being able to move into space has always been something that attracted me. It's something that's so far away from my life that it's always nice to fantasize about. 
• Mystery: The mystery surrounding the story was great. I had no idea what was going on, and even though I felt like I already had met the bad guy, I had no idea who it was. I was curious about the outcome of the story and was glad that I got the answers I needed.
• The story: This is a thrilling and adventurous story for younger ones and I'm sure Middle Grade kids will devour this story. I liked the fact that the characters in this book contained cool boys as well ad fierce girls, so it's not just a boy or a girl story. What I also liked about the story was the aspect of friendship. Max learns in this book what real friendship is and that was a nice layer to the story.

Cons

• Explanation: I would've liked to get a bit more explanation on the world building in the first 20% of the book. The whole thing called "Europa" had me so confused for a while. Was it the continent Europe? A space ship? A planet? It was hard for me to picture it. A map or an illustration would've been nice. The book also tells you the planet is dangerous and I didn't feel that in the story. For a dangerous planet or space-thingy, it didn't feel secure at all. It was so easy for younger ones to slip out, multiple times...
• Too much: A lot of exciting things happen in the story, but the some of the characters ALMOST die just too many times. I felt like it didn't add anything to the story and it didn't make it extra thrilling for me.
• Dr...: Dr. this and Dr. that... There are too many Dr's in this story for me to keep them apart. They needed an extra layer or needed to be in the story more for them to make a lasting impression on me.

Overall

This is one of those books that can be liked by old and young and everything in between. I do feel that this story is more suited for Middle Grade children. I could see to many flaws in the book to TOTALLY go bonkers on it, but I did enjoy the story. I liked the main characters and I liked some of the side characters as well. The ending in this book was nice, but I'm not going to read the other books if this is going to be a series.

Thanks for reading!

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