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The Day Of The Djinn Warriors (2008)

The Day of the Djinn Warriors (2008)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.95 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0439932149 (ISBN13: 9780439932141)
Language
English
Publisher
orchard books

About book The Day Of The Djinn Warriors (2008)

To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with this one. I'm starting to agree with some of the other reviews I've read: I really don't know how this series is going to drag on for another three books. The storyline didn't grip me because they seemed just to be solving some kind of vague old mystery for no reason. One of the characters did say something like: "Why are we trying to solve this mystery anyway? I just want to go home and see mom. . ." then Nimrod replied: "Because, John, old mysteries like this are not to be left alone. They carry ancient and powerful magic." And I was like: "OK, so I'm reading this book because of that? They need a better reason." I think the reason I actually did persevere is because of the weird thing that was happening to Dybbuk/Jonathan Tarot. That storyline was moderately entertaining, but ended, sorry - stopped suddenly and not very well at all. (and, just one little thing - what is it with all the John/Jons in this book! I think P.B. Kerr must like that name and doesn't realize that he gives it to almost every male minor character. There was; John (main character), Jonathan (moderately main character's new name), Jon (minor character who was somebody's hairdresser), John (some author one of the characters mentions). . . I could go on! There was too many Johns!)When the book started off, after last book's epic final line and dilemma that I was looking forward to being solved, I wondered if the series was losing it's charm. My favourite characters went sort of strange and everything was going wrong for the characters. It was basically just a bit of a downer at that point. Then it started to pick up as the twins went adventuring off around the globe as usual. Soon all the djinn were leaving their bodies and becoming spirits all over the place. I couldn't stop thinking: This is so weird. At one point three people were sharing a body, and it was beyond strange. Also, the author is seriously rubbish at writing normal people's reactions to extraordinary things. At one point a man who'd been dead for who knows how long came back to life just because his bones were laid out on the floor in a magical way or something like that. A woman who was not a djinn or anything came in and didn't seem in the slightest weirded out that a man from thousands of years ago had come back to life!I didn't think John and Faustina's relationship added anything to the tale, and didn't John have a crush on some girl in the last book?! Of course, that went nowhere and it doesn't look like this one will be either. I just hope this isn't becoming a habit for John; it's sort of weird. I also found the trail from Phillipa granting that policeman guy's wish to a volcano erupting, totally ridiculous and childish (I know that's random but I wanted to mention it). So then in the next part of the story, we got onto the main mystery. I found it really sloppily planned and not very well written. The whole ancient-mystery-of-hauntings-and-stolen-stuff-from-museums-thing didn't grab me. The author also kept writing in new random people from all different times in history with complicated names that I couldn't remember. It was so confusing so that when this guy came near the end, the main characters were all like: "It's you!" "Where did you come from?" "We thought you were dead!" etc, and I didn't have the faintest idea who the man was. All of the storylines were wrapped up, in general, poorly. They just seemed to either fix themselves in an instant, stop randomly with no closure, or just be too easy after all the build-up. (view spoiler)[The defeat of Iblis was WAY too easy and in some ways I want him to come back, because if this was the end, I'm wondering why he was ever included in the first place, but then in some ways I don't want him to come back, because it's getting kind of old and boring. (hide spoiler)]

Blah blah blah. Another mildly interesting installment in this once promising series. Other than the convenient deus ex machina devices and back stories, the only thing that seems to connect these books is the sheer amount of really thoughtless comments made by Groanin about other cultures.I get that he's made to sound ignorant so that the children (and by extension, the audience) can learn and become cultured, but it often makes me cringe with the kind of generalizations that are made by this character.The names of most of the side characters suffer from either being terrible puns or are completely unpronounceable. There are also about 50 of these characters throughout the series and the audience has to remember who is who and why they might need to remember them.I also have to say that throwing the word "djinn" in front of nearly everything djinn-related is just annoying at this point. "Djinnternational mail". "Djinnversonnacular tournament". "Djinn-soaked" would be a good way to describe the argot at times in this series.And yet, I continue to read these books. Why? Because I have a habit of reading the first book in a series then just ordering the rest to have so I can kinda binge read them. I probably shouldn't have with these because the character arcs are stretched and you can tell the author is running out of material. At this point, I have no clue why this needs to be a 7 book series other than to compete with the far more entertaining Harry Potter books.

Do You like book The Day Of The Djinn Warriors (2008)?

Not as good as the others, or perhaps i just missed listening to the narrator!Twins Philippa and John have only recently found out they have djinn power. A discovery that has lead to many adventures with their Uncle Nimrod. In this fourth book, in the bestselling series, the twins are up against new challenges as they race against time to save their mother from become the cold-hearted Blue Djinn of Babylon, stop the aging curse on their father and find out why museums in different countries are reporting hauntings and robberies.Follow John and Philippa as a new globe-trotting escapade begins, taking them from America to England, Venice and finally China in their attempt to avert disaster.
—Jenne

Like the other reviews said, this wasn't nearly as interesting as the other books from the series that kept me hooked throughout the entire story. I would have dropped it, had I not been stuck in an environment where I wasn't allowed to do anything but read, sleep, or die of boredom, for 6 hours.The main reason I'm giving this a low rating though, is because the Chinese was completely messed up. I know there are several ways to romanize Chinese--like "Gong Hay Fat Choy" instead of "Gong Xi Fa Cai" (Cantonese vs. Mandarin spelling), for example, basically meaning "Happy New Year"--but the author switches back and forth throughout the whole book, which was kind of disorienting, and some of the spellings he used I don't even think are actual ways to romanize things. Many of the phrases he used made no sense either--it's clear he used something like Google Translate for his translation, and not an actual Chinese speaker. For example, using "zi" for "stop". First of all, it's "zhi", not "zi", and while it does mean "stop", no one uses it alone--it's usually used like "ting zhi". However, to tell someone to stop, people usually just use "ting". If you say "zhi" to anyone in China, I can guarantee you're going to get some weird looks.And at the "Dong Xi" part, I really wanted to slam my face on the desk as hard as I could, but alas, as I was required to stay quiet, I could not. "Dong Xi" literally means "thing". Kerr did address that "Dong Xi" means thing, but all the other translations he threw in, like "less than human"--they're true, but no one uses it that way. If you say "the Dong Xi are sucking up the souls" to someone, I am 100000% sure they're going to interpret it as "the things are sucking up the souls". Which, again, makes no sense and sounds kind of lame.And there actually is a word for zombie in Chinese. “僵尸", or "jiang shi".You can tell the author didn't spend much time on that aspect of the story. He's a pretty well-known author, does he not know a single person who speaks Chinese?
—Helen

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