Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 10/15/2019 Lintang is an islander in a world of monsters, called mythies, and a storyteller who has been labeled a troublemaker in her village. A water goddess protects her home from human outsiders, but mythies plague humanity and nobody knows for sure how they came to the world or even how they appear. One day, Shafira, a pirate queen, lands on their shores, and she needs a villager to help her and her crew past the guardian to leave. Lintang, always in the thick of any commotion and raring for adventure, is chosen by Captain Shafira to sail away on a mission, and the story takes readers away to a world of sirens and magical birds, sea battles, and mythical transformations. The overarching theme in this story is the concept of home, what it means to an individual, and how it can reside in friends and family rather than a geographical location. The world Lintang resides in is inventive and nicely established by scattered excerpts from a mythie guide book, and the story is an immersive delight for any fan of fantasy fiction. - Copyright 2019 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 11/01/2019 Gr 4–7—Twelve-year-old Lintang of Desa village, protected by the sea guardian Nyasamdra, yearns for adventure, and thinks she's found it when pirate captain Shafira welcomes her on board in exchange for safe passage through Nyasamdra's waters. Lintang's friend, Bayani, for reasons of his own, stows away and joins the crew. Lintang relishes every aspect of the eventful voyage including tangles with magical creatures who are described in occasional pages from The Mythie Guidebook (similar to entries from J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts). Lintang struggles to follow Shafira's orders; she dives recklessly into any available fray regardless of her own safety. A final conflict with a dragon and a siren makes for an exciting ending, with sequels likely. Despite a bucketload of human and Mythie personalities, the story is clear and approachable. Moss's smooth, sensory prose carries readers through the story as fluidly as Shafira's ship navigates the waters around the United Regions. Shipboard activities are realistically portrayed, and there are enough political machinations and loose ends to provide many future stories. There may be a few too many elements in Moss's series opener, but they will likely be explored in future works. VERDICT A particularly well-crafted, solid fantasy adventure suitable for most collections.—Caitlin Augusta, Stratford Library Association, CT - Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.