This was not the best book to read immediately after The Hunting Games. The language felt stilted and overflowery for the target audience, the plot movement was choppy, and I didn't feel like the main character, a teenage girl, was well developed enough to absorb what the plot was requiring of her.The storyline is about a teen girl named Kate who is with her father, a historian, on a scientific voyage with a woman who has is trying to find a fish that had previously been known as extinct. Her father is along on a tip on Merlin's horn, a supposedly magical horn that had been responsible for Merlin's death. The two purposes segue nicely even though the scientific crew with a historian looking for magical relics make for strange bedfellows in the story. Kate finds herself falling through an ocean whirlpool and in the land she discovers the secret to both the fish that apparently can live forever and the long-last legend of Merlin's horn.What the author was deprived of in smooth storytelling he made up for with his homework. There was a lot of scientific language and information about antique-type relics that I would not expect to be so detailed in a juvenile fiction book.If you like stories about Merlin, you will probably like this story. If you like stories about treasures at sea, you will likely enjoy this story. Other than that, the events of the story felt similar to some in the latter portion of the Percy Jackson series. A bit contrived at times. It came up lacking for me.
When I was a teen, my dad started traveling a lot for work. After a visit down to the States he came back with a copy of this book. Though it remains to this day the only book in the series I have ever read, I instantly fell in love with Kate.The adventure is compelling and all-encompassing, it sucked me right in. I memorized the Ballad of the Resurrection (even reciting it as a piece for work) and spent countless hours imaging that I was, in fact, Kate.This book is the reason I named my cat Nimue, and if that isn't indicative of the story's impact on my life, I don't know what is.
What do You think about The Merlin Effect (2004)?
To me the Merlin Effect was filled with a mixture of both beauty and intelligence and that is what was able to draw my attention. I think the connection I shared with this book is that it talks about a person who barely spends time with her father and is mad that he isn't bothered by that fact. In my own life I rarely see my parents because they are always on business trips but when I want to go somewhere to get away from them suddenly they start saying no. Every time that happens I feels like I'm about to lose my mind. Anyway, this book is like Triple H but instead of being the King of Kings its rather the book of books. This story will live forever and there is no way and I mean NO WAY that I have been this satisfied after reading a book except of course Horrible History books.
—Emir DA BOSS
