With his dying words, H—Jacob Portman’s final connection to his grandfather Abe’s secret life— entrusts Jacob with a mission: Deliver newly contacted peculiar Noor Pradesh to an operative known only as V. Noor is being hunted. She is the subject of an ancient prophecy, one that foretells a looming apocalypse. Save Noor—Save the future of all peculiardom.
With only a few bewildering clues to follow, Jacob must figure out how to find V, the most enigmatic, and most powerful, of Abe’s former associates. But V is in hiding and she never, ever, wants to be found.
With enemies behind him and the unknown ahead, Jacob Portman’s story continues as he takes a brave leap forward into The Conference of the Birds.
Let me just start by saying I see these six books as two separate trilogies. It’s been absolutely years since I read (and really liked!) the first three in the series, and going back to A Map of Days felt a little unnecessary. I was happy with how the series had ended, and I didn’t feel like we needed more. But I did also enjoy reading the series, and found myself wanting to know what would happen when the gang toured America.
It’s been a while since I read A Map of Days, and although I didn’t feel like I needed in-depth knowledge of the first 3threebooks, I did want to refresh myself on the fourth book. I used this recap guide by Penguin Teen and watched the video linked at the bottom of the same post, and I must say that it allowed me to dive straight into the fifth book without any problem!
There’s an art to fleeing casually.
I chose to listen to the audiobook of this one, and I did quite enjoy it, even though I feel like you miss some of the ambience by not being able to view the pictures interspersed throughout the story at the same time as reading. I did make sure to go back and flick through my physical version, but it’s not quite the same. I thought the narration was really good, but it did make me realise how stereotypically British these characters are. I think part of this is because some of the characters are from the 1940s, and they do use some very British turns of phrase that may have been more current to the time. It didn’t annoy me too much, but it could have easily got on my nerves a little!
Although this book definitely didn’t blow me away, I did still enjoy it, and I remember feeling the same about A Map of Days. These books aren’t amazing, but they’re fun adventure stories with characters I will always root for, so I made sure to enjoy the book for what it was.
It’s not easy, running from something that might kill you while not attracting stares.
Mostly due to the fact I read the audiobook, I actually managed to read this in a day. It was just so easy to listen to and I had a day of doing mindless cleaning tasks at work, which allowed me to read most of the book. I sped through it and I found the story very entertaining, they just don’t feel super unique at this point.
★★★★
3.5 out of 5 stars
-Beth
May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽
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