Wednesday, September 11, 2019

The Serpent's Secret by Sayantani DasGupta

Kira has always been a little embarrassed by her parents.  While she just wants to fit in, they persist in emphasizing her Indian (from India, not native American) heritage. They make her dress up like an Indian princess every Halloween, which is also her birthday.  The year she turns 12 she decides to put her foot down. She is just about to tell her parents she will be a vampire for Halloween, thank you very much, when instead of finding her parents at home, she finds a raging demon tearing up her kitchen.  She is "rescued" from the demon, called a rokkhosh, by two young men who claim to be princes, and starts on a crazy adventure in the world where Indian mythology is real.

When I first saw the cover of this book I wondered if it were in the "Aru Shah" series, but is is not. It is a totally different series also based on Indian mythology but it is like the Aru Shah series in a lot of ways.  There is a lot of demon bashing, psychedelic settings, and crushing on cute demi-gods.  I think it was a bit lighter in tone than Aru Shah.  The demons all speak in very silly rhymes, so that even when they were trying to eat our heroes, it is hard to take them very seriously.  DasGupta ends the book with a note about which stories were based on Indian Bengali folk lore, and a their sources. This is another great choice for those who like Rick Riordan's earlier Percy Jackson series. (2018, 332 p.)

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