Hello you gorgeous individuals, it's Kav here and today I'm going to be talking
about Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi. Aru Shah and the End of
Time is a middle-grade fantasy novel based off of Hindu mythology that
follows the story of a 12-year old girl, Aru Shah, who finds out that she is a
reincarnation of one of the five Pandava brothers and, after finding that out, she
goes on a journey basically to save the world. I was lucky enough to receive an
ARC of this novel for my good friend who got it from the publisher--it's kind of a
long story, but I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this novel--so of
course I read it. It has been a novel I've been anticipating for so long - it
was one of my five most anticipated reads of the year, so I really wanted to
read it, so of course I did. It comes out on March 27th and if you want to know
all of the different reasons you need to get this book, then definitely sit back
and watch this review.
Reading this novel, I basically thought about how
12-year old me might have had a very different experience had I had a novel
like this in my life. If I had seen a book like this talking about me, about
people like me, I may not have grown up ashamed of my heritage and my life and
it's something that still breaks my heart to this day that I ever even had
those feelings, but society told me that being Indian and being Hindu was not
good enough and a book like this would have changed all of that for me, so what
I am most excited for is for the Indian and Hindu kids and teens who are gonna read
this book and realize that they are good enough and realize that their heritage
is pretty cool because it is. But outside of my personal relation to this novel
and how this novel is a very important one, it's also just really good. From the
writing to the characters to the plot to every other aspect of it, it is
really good. So let's kick it off with the characters.
Our main character, Aru Shah, is a 12-year old girl who lies a lot and I really
liked that. I liked the intricate details Roshani wove into all of the
characters in this novel. Aru isn't necessarily our classic heroine, she is
different. She's not like a morally great character,
she is definitely without a doubt good, but as she's twelve, her priorities aren't
necessarily straight. So whereas at her core she is a good person, sometimes she
doesn't go about it the right way because, like I said, she lies a lot and
such. You know, being twelve, her main priority growing up was just to impress the
popular people in her class and because of her wish to do that, she essentially
starts the chaos that takes us on the journey in this book and I like that. I
like that she was a different protagonist than we really get to see
because she's still good, but she's good in a different way. And then we have
another primary character, Mini. She is part-Indian and part-Filipina,
while Aru is all Indian. Mini is much more of a classic heroine, but despite
that, she still has all these intricate details woven into her as well. She is
the type of person who basically thinks about how anything and everything can
kill you - touching that bookshelf can give you germs that could make you die -
that's kind of the type of person she is. Part of that is because of how much she
wants to go into medicine, that's her ultimate goal and it was nice to see
that difference because Aru never really talks about who she wants to be
or what she wants to do, but Mini has this clear set idea of what she wants
the rest of her life to be. And she's also really smart, she's a hella smart
character, much more book smart while Aru is kind of more street smart, so
the dynamics between the two of them were great and they are basically "soul
sisters" which is what they have referred to each other as through the book.
Because of them going on this journey together and because of
them essentially being sisters, what we get to see in this novel is girls
supporting girls. And as you all know, that's something that I love. I love
seeing girls supporting girls and that is what we see so much in this novel.
Throughout the novel it is the two of them fighting together - they are not going
at each other, they are fighting together and they are a team and I love that and
I love the friendship that forms between them because they get brought together
by all these chaotic circumstances, but then they end up being this incredible
team and I love it. And then we have many other supporting characters. We have Boo,
who is essentially their pigeon guardian. Then we have Urvashi and Hanuman, who
are part of a council that they have to kind of meet to prove they are
reincarnations of the five Pandava brothers. And we have all these other
supporting characters - some are good, some are more in line with the villain. All
of them had their own tone to them. All of them had their own personality and that
really showed through the book, so it was obvious that she took the time to really
make them each their own, even the characters they were only interacting
with for one chapter, even those characters had their own personality and
their own characteristics, so every character was different and every
character was themselves and that was one of the best aspects of this book. And
then of course there is the plot of this novel which is a huge part of it and I
loved the plot in this novel. Obviously I can't go too in depth with it as this is
a spoiler-free review, but one of the things that I think really contributed to how
much I love the plot was the pacing. And that's not something I talk about in my
reviews a lot, but it's something I noticed reading this book. It was paced
very, very well and because of that the plot played out well. The timeline of
this novel is done super well, we really get to see them go on their journey and
they have to make all of these different stops along the way in order to reach
their goal of kind of defeating the ultimate antagonist of this book and all
those different stops they make, like I said, they're paced well. They have enough
action in them, but there are enough breaks between them, so
I think that the reader gets a good sense of their journey and really gets
to go on this journey with them and because of how the pacing is done, it
makes the journey so much fun to go on. And speaking of that, all the different
stops they do have to make and the plot itself - it's also good. I love the
different stops they had to make because, like I said, I think those contributed
great action sequences to the book, they contributed high-end adventure and such,
but then they were also the breaks in between and there was also some funny
scenes in the book like because of the dynamics between the characters and such,
there were some really great lines thrown out that made the book funny in a way, so
everything just played out really well throughout the course of the book which
is something I loved. And of course writing wise I enjoyed it. I do think
that the dialogue was done really well. In terms of descriptions, I don't have
too many positives or complaints, but that in itself is a good thing because
oftentimes with the descriptions I do find things lacking, but obviously I
didn't find that here, so I think that in itself is a good thing. And like I said,
the dialogue - because of how each character had their own personality and,
like I mentioned, the funny lines that were thrown from character to character -
I think that the dialogue was done really well in this book. And going back
to plot for a quick minute, I love the way Hindu mythology was incorporated in
this book. It was so nice to read that, to see a story that resonated with me and I
think that this would be a good read for both Hindu readers and for non-Hindu
readers because for me, as a Hindu reader, it was nice to see kind of my culture
represented in this. *Hinduism is a religion, but I'm not necessarily a
religious person, I consider myself a Hindu more by culture, so that's why I'm
referring to it as my culture as opposed to my religion.* But I also think for non-
Hindu readers it can be a nice glimpse of something that may not affect your
personal life. So yeah the mythology, it was incorporated really well and I loved
how that played into the plot and into the fantasy aspects of this novel, so it
was just a really fun read all around. I mean, I have been anticipating this novel
for so long. Literally with every bone in my body I have wanted this novel and I
almost cried when this book was announced, so I have built my
expectations up very high for this novel and
I can say with full certainty it did not disappoint, it exceeded those
expectations. Those are all my thoughts on Aru Shah and the End of Time. I
hope you all enjoyed this video - if you did, please give it a like and subscribe
because that stuff makes me happy and go ahead and comment down below whether or
not you are going to be picking up this book when it comes out on March 27th and
I will leave links to where you can pre-order it in the description below, as
well as my Goodreads review of this novel. As usual, all of my social media
and my Goodreads will be in the description below. Thank you all so much for watching, I
hope you're having a lovely day or night wherever you are. Please remember you're
beautiful and you deserve the world and I will see you soon for a new video,
goodbye!
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