The Emerald Tablet by Dan Jolley

The Emerald Tablet (Five Elements, #1)

by Dan Jolley

Five elements. Four friends. One city-and its sinister shadow. This epic middle grade series is filled with awesome elemental powers, nightmarish creatures, and nonstop adventure that will thrill fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Rick Riordan, and Brandon Mull. When Gabe Conway and his friends find a strange old map in his uncle's office and follow it to a crumbling secret chamber beneath San Francisco, they think they're just having one last adventure before Gabe moves away. They don't expect to end up bound to the magic of the elements, or to set off a chain of events that none of them can explain. But they're about to get more of an adventure than they bargained for. A power-hungry cult is plotting to merge our world with a twisted parallel realm-and now it's up to Gabe, his friends, and their new elemental powers to save San Francisco from utter destruction.

Reviewed by limabean74 on

2 of 5 stars

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The cover of this book is amazing, I really liked to sound of it, however, it didn't deliver like I was hoping. It has a LOT of info dumped at you and as much as I thought some of the characters were good, I wasn't a fan of them all, I think it missed a lot of build all around and it took to long at time to get to the next part of the story. I felt like the did more talking and running around than actually doing anything. Once I got to about 78% I think it started to pick up a bit on the action and the story started to come together just thought maybe it was a little too late.

The story revolves around 4 kids, a ghost, a secret society and an alternate world.  Gabe, Kaz, Lily and Brett are planning to have one more adventure before Gabe has to move again. His Uncle Steve is trying to keep him secretly safe and needs to move but Brett throws everything all over the place when he steals a map and sets a chain of events into action that could cost them all their lives.

It needed more world and characters build, the only person that got the most build was Brett and Gabe, I wasn't a fan of Brett at all not even a little. The Ghost kid was equally annoying. The POV also changed a lot and I don't think I liked that very much, it made it a little confusing. I think I would have preferred just reading in Gabes POV but I understand you need to read in Bretts also but I just didn't like him. I wanted to like the book more but I just felt like it was a lot more explaining then telling a story.

Overall maybe it would be better for younger kids but it wasn't what I was expecting and I think the lack of character build and me not liking them all really caused me to not enjoy this book like I would have wanted. I don't ever say don't read a book because you never know, you might totally like it better than me! :)

2.5 stars on my blog/ 3 on goodreads




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This review was originally posted on Because reading is better than real life

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 26 May, 2017: Finished reading
  • 26 May, 2017: Reviewed