Book Review: The Camelot Code

Book: The Camelot Code by Mari Mancusi

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

All fourteen-year-old gamer girl Sophie Sawyer wants to do is defeat Morgan Le Fay in her favorite Arthurian videogame. She has no idea the secret code sent via text message is actually a magical spell that will send her back in time to meet up with a real life King Arthur instead.

Of course Arthur's not king yet--he hasn't pulled the sword from the stone--and he has no idea of his illustrious destiny. And when a twist of fate sends him forward in time--to modern day high school--history is suddenly in jeopardy. Even more so when Arthur Googles himself and realizes what lies in store for him if he returns to his own time--and decides he'd rather try out for the football team instead.

Now Sophie and her best friend Stuart find themselves in a race against time--forced to use their 21st century wits to keep history on track, battle a real-life version of their favorite videogame villain, and get the once and future king back where he belongs. Or the world, as they know it, may no longer exist.



Rating: 3 stars

Review:

One of my favorite books about King Arthur is The One and Future King by T. H. White.

And this story feel like a good companion piece for tweens. The Camelot Code was a unique tale of the King Arthur mythology that's aimed at tweens to teens. It combined time travel, modern technology, romance, friendship and was based on the premise that the Arthurian legends were real.

In this story, 14 years old Sophie Sawyer and her best friend Stuart Mallory are total gamers and the game they play the most is Camelot's Honor based on King Arthur.

The story also follows Arthur the soon to be future King who is currently the student of Merlin and Princess Guinevere. And then one day, a powerful object was accidentally sent to the future (Sophie's present), Merlin needed someone to get it before the sorceress Morgan Le Fay got her hands on it. He then sent a special code to Sophie which turned out to be a magical spell that sent her back in time.

While Merlin was preparing Sophie to go back to her present time to locate the missing object,  Arthur accidently wound up in the future. But since Arthur was supposed to be at the tournament as well as getting ready to pull the sword from the stone, Merlin had a problem because without Arthur to become King time will quickly start to change. Sophie had a suggestion, she thought her friend Stuart could step in for Arthur until she could go back to not only retrieve the magical object but also Arthur.

Side note: doesn't it almost make you wonder why it would not have been easier for Merlin to have sent Sophie a message to go get the object then bring her to the past.

Meanwhile in the present, Arthur with help from Stuart's brother Lucas was getting used to being in the future and starting to think about never going back home especially after finding out how his life will turn out and Guinevere's betrayal with Lancelot.

There were parts of the story I really liked but there was some I thought was just okay or down right annoying. Some of the characters were merely plot devices and pretty much useless and forgettable. Is it bad that I was actually rooting for Morgan Le Fay to actually do something really bad to some of those characters? Yeah, I know that's pretty bad to say but they were so annoying. Anyway, nearing the end of the book I was a little tired of the time traveling as well as a lot of time being wasting by these character who knew how urgent their task were but were still wasting time.

As interesting as this was, I felt like it was trying to do too many things and was losing focus. This is definitely more for the younger reader since the characters were a bit simplistic.

And sadly, despite all the time travel and knowledge, Arthur's fate will most likely still be the same. And try as it might, this story still could not make Guinevere enduring to me. I still can't stand the character and Merlin was right because she is nothing but trouble.

Like I said this was good but can be a little annoying or frustrating especially when you want the characters to stop wasting time and try to fix what needs to be fixed.

I think this would be a good book for young readers who maybe interested in the Arthurian Legends but may not be ready for books such as The Once and Future King.