Chapter Nine: The Amulet of Samarkand

So, first, my apologies for not having written in more than a month!  I can lamely say that I was busy with school and then the holidays, but I was at least reading for fun, even if I didn't write about it right away!  So, The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud...  I honestly didn't enjoy this read nearly as much as I'd expected to.  I generally quite like YA fantasy, but something about this left me feeling lukewarm.  I did bother to finish it, and I found the last few chapters more interesting than most of the rest of the book, but I didn't end the book feeling that I absolutely must read the sequels--in fact, I ended thinking that I almost certainly won't bother with the sequels.  I think a lot of my problem with this book stemmed from the fact that I had trouble identifying with and liking the main child character.  He was both cold and whiny, I found, and I had trouble sympathizing with him.  I rather liked the other main character better, who is a wise (or so he thinks of himself) djinn, although I'm not sure how much I was supposed to like him.  The villains weren't compelling enough to really hate or fear, so they didn't help spur me on, either. On the whole, I wasn't terribly impressed by this book, but I've certainly read worse.