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First Impression: Elves in a Human village find themselves in a bit of a dilemma when their worlds collide in an unexpected way that sees the races working together.

An Adventure in a Human Village book cover

Jaino, Jayoli and Auggie are the central characters at the heart of A. F. Ayzouki’s middle-grade fantasy novel, An Adventure in a Human Village. As a result of the death of his nanny grandmother, Auggie has sunk into a prolonged depression that threatens to consume him. The only thing that will cure him is a hearty laugh, and soon. With time against him, Jayoli devises a plan. Seeing that their old age stories were being mistold, a ruse was constructed to provide reason to visit a human community to rectify them. The only trouble is, the village they are traveling to has had some strange issues of their own recently, and the elves are unable to use their elfin powers under any circumstances. In the case of an emergency, they are permitted to blow a whistle to summon a research ranked elf who has the ability to solve any problem. So, you have to wonder, are the elves able to manage a magic-free vacation? Will the humans get Auggie to laugh again? Will they right their wronged history? And what happens if they are unsuccessful in any of these?

So without further ado, I would like to express gratitude to the book’s author, A. F. Ayzouki. The generous gift of a free copy means i get to read and review more than I may otherwise would. I am grateful for this opportunity to bring you all my thoughts.

Ayzouki’s initial plot is rather simple in theory. Spread across thirteen chapters, the story quickly unfolds. Each chapter is clearly titled to express the main event that takes place within it. Within the first few chapters, it is clear that the blurb did not do the book justice and there is far more adventure than the reader is originally led to believe. As other characters are introduced, the reader is made aware of additional issues, although these lie with the humans and add another dimension to the story. The immediate thought was whether these two different races would actually be able to solve each other’s issues and create a happy ending for everyone involved, especially as there were some mirror concerns that meant that there was an understanding amongst them. It also demonstrated from early on that the elves weren’t so different from humans after all.

In terms of writing, the text starts off well. There were a few peculiar ways of phrasing things but as it is a fantasy and were words spoken by elves, these might be forgiven. However, around the 36% mark, the grammatical errors become more apparent. There are several instances where words are missed out in the editing process, and other instances where an extra word has been inserted. For example, ‘No one from the village has heard from since then,’ and ‘He instructed us get a good night’s sleep well to give our brains a rest’. It became frustrating as it slowed the reading process down and on occasion required the reader to read and reread and reread to make sense, which then interfered with staying with the plot.

Structure-wise, the story has a clear beginning, middle and end. It works towards a climax that is clearly defined. There is an obvious adventure that is had that creates subsequent adventures. Once the climax is reached, the story moves quickly towards a conclusion and jumps a head quite some time. I think the time jump could have been smaller or that there could have been a bit more filler story to get there.

Would a middle grader like this story? Perhaps. It is gender neutral and likely to appeal to those that have an interest in love/romance. It is not a spectacular story, but it isn’t bad either. Ayzouki does leave a few breadcrumbs that help explain the conclusion so those trying to solve the mystery that occurs might do so by paying attention to the clues that arise. There is a strong sense that the story is written by a non-native English speaker as there is some phrasing that isn’t common and sometimes the speech can be a bit stilted, but praise where praise is due, the story is pitched at the right age and is of a good length for the target audience. It did leave some unanswered questions in relation to a time anomaly, but this issue is merely a vehicle to progress the story and so I won’t waste much time dwelling on it. Given everything that has been analyzed, An Adventure in a Human Village is a strong 3 out of 5 stars that would raise to a 4 if the errors were eradicated. The fact that there are too many to count results in an unprofessional finish.

Quick Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ / PG Rated

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