YA Book Review: Bad Magic by Pseudonymous Bosch

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this product, free of charge, from Netgalley , for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it

This new YA book releases next month, and while it technically isn't about New Orleans (which we'll be talking about all day, since it is the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina), but bad magic and NOLA just seem like a perfect fit!
As the author says in this book "bad words are bad because they make people feel bad. That's what they do... And good words make people feel good...And magic words make people feel magic." 
If you've ever been to NOLA, you know it has a magic all it's own....

Synopsis:

A magical new series from Pseudonymous Bosh, the bestselling author of the Secret Series
Magic is BAD. As in fake. Cheesy. Unreal. At least, that's what Clay, who has seen one magic show too many, thinks.

When words from his journal appear mysteriously on his school wall as graffiti, he never imagines that magic might be to blame. And when the same graffiti lands him at Earth Ranch, a camp for "troubled" kids on a remote volcanic island, magic is the last thing he expects to find there.

But at Earth Ranch, there is one strange surprise after another, until Clay no longer knows what to expect. Is he really talking to a llama? Did he really see a ghost? What is the scary secret hidden in the abandoned library? The only thing he knows for sure is that behind the clouds of vog (volcanic smog), nothing is as it seems. Can he solve the riddle of Earth Ranch before trouble erupts?

Review:

I had not read the previous series of books by the author, but there is a tie in of characters, for those of you that have (which is great for younger readers!). This is a YA book and it is perfectly developed for that age group. At its heart, it is a retelling of Shakespearse's The Tempest (one of my favs), but with modern twists and dialogue, so modern kids can understand the meaning behind the story. It would be interesting to have the author take on other Shakespeare tales, within this new series! Adults will find the story interesting as well, making it a great book for family reading and discussion! If you're looking for something different, but intriguing to your kids, check out this new book!

About the Author:

Pseudonymous Bosch is the anonymous pseudonymous author of the Secret Series. Not much is known about him other than that he has a passionate love of chocolate and cheese and an equally passionate hatred of mayonnaise. Rumors of Boschian sightings are just as frequent and about as reliable as reports of alien abductions. If you ever meet anyone claiming to be Pseudonymous himself he is almost certainly an impostor. The real Pseudonymous is said currently to be hiding in a cave in a remote jungle (although there are contrary reports that he is somewhere in Greenland)