An Unpolished Gem
When I first heard the premise of the book (heroic epic with a heavy dose of the magical girl genre) I was a bit skeptical about how much I’d enjoy the story. However, my worries soon proved to be unfounded, as the story proved to be more about one girl’s growth to become a hero and how the combined efforts of a hero and their friends/sidekicks are far more powerful than any one individual can be.
The main character, Trini, is asked by one of the Muses to help write a codex related to Trini’s adventures in creating a Holy Grail that will be used to help improve/save the world from the forces of evil. Before she can create it, however, she must first pass a test to prove that she is both worthy of and prepared for the power that comes from her resulting Holy Grail. She has her family (especially her kick-butt sister, Gloria, one of my favorite characters in the book) and friends helping her make it to the day of her official test, which is a good thing as there a number of opponents both mundane and magical that she encounters during the 5 days leading up to her test.
Besides focusing on the question of what makes a true hero and exactly how much a hero can do on their own, the book also goes over some of the problems of faced by minority groups. Race, religion, relationship preferences; the story addresses them all at some point. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on your personal beliefs, but either way it does bring in a character variety to the story that is not normally found in books.
I should note that there are a few grammar errors that can be found throughout the book (something that the author appears to be aware of, as the main character apologies for this before the story starts) but these are minor distractions to an otherwise good story. These instances decrease as the story goes on, so as the action increases nothing occurs grammatically that would affect the enjoyment of these scenes.
Overall, I would recommend this to a teen audience or older who enjoys the fantasy or magical girl genres, or for someone that is looking for characters that are part of a minority group but not a story focused exclusively on the problems they face.