A World Without Heroes, Review

Jason Walker has often wished his life could be a bit less predictable--until a routine day at the zoo ends with Jason suddenly transporting from the hippo tank to a place unlike anything he's ever seen. In the past, the people of Lyrian welcomed visitors from the Beyond, but attitudes have changed since the wizard emperor Maldor rose to power. The brave resistors who opposed the emperor have been bought off or broken, leaving a realm where fear and suspicion prevail.In his search for a way home, Jason meets Rachel, who was also mysteriously drawn to Lyrian from our world. With the help of a few scattered rebels, Jason and Rachel become entangled in a quest to piece together the word of power that can destroy the emperor, and learn that their best hope to find a way home will be to save this world without heroes.

REVIEW:
The book certainly wasn't at my TBR list but i got it from S&S galleys. For some reason i felt i would be happy with it. It didn't really work out for me. It had good parts but the things i didn't like were standing out more.

Good things: While the story follows the cliche boy saves the world according to a prophecy and stuff, Brandon Mull managed to give it an originality. It has great ideas, with the riddles and everything they had the heroes happened in their adventure. I totally forgot that the main plot is something i have seen over and over again.
Bad things: There were 3 things that really stand out for me.
-The age of the heroes. While they are 12-13 you feel them like they are older. Their actions on some scenes doesn't match with how a 12 year old would act towards killing,hunting,lose of family and many other serious situations. At the same time, there were time where the heroes were like REALLY naive. They trusted everyone and everything so easily that i was like "you kiddin right?they can't see it?". All this make the characters a bit fake.
-Even though the book is 400+ pages, it was going fast. Like FAST. There are tons of different things happening, the author describes everything fast and you get don't get to enjoy the scenes or learn more about the characters.
-Lastly, the whole thing with song which summoned the heroes to the world remind me of Narnia: Prince Caspian (the movie since i haven't read the book). And as a result, everytime they mentioned the event i was like " -.- ".

I'm not really curious right now for the next book. Maybe i will get if if there is a galley available, but after this one i'm not really into the story.

Another review you may want to check out can be found at: My Love Affair With Books.

Thanks S&S for the galley.
Challenges: 100 books in 2011, 350+ Pages, E-books in 2011