Family Book Club and Aru Shah and the End of Time

My family read Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi, the first book in a new-ish series about Hindu mythology from the Rick Riordan presents imprint. For those who aren't familiar with Rick Riordan, he writes the enormously popular Percy Jackson series about a boy who discovers he is the son of Poseidon. Riordan has also written books incorporating Roman, Norse, and Egyptian mythology. We've read several of his books and they are fun, full of adventure and snarky but lovable characters. The books published by his imprint take on the mythology of other cultures written by authors from those cultures.

Aru Shah and the End of Time, follows the Riordan formula-- a snarky teen discovers she is descended from mythological gods and must go on a quest to save the world. This book skews a little younger than the Percy Jackson books, with it's 12 year old heroines, Aru & Mini being joined by a talking parrot, a particularly Disney-esque touch. I enjoyed learning a bit of Hindu mythology and I especially liked that the girls in this book act like average 12 year old girls and still get to save the day. It's a nice message that even if you seem unremarkable you can find your inner Pandava and beat the bad guy. That said, I often felt like the heroines were just jumping from one battle to the next and the characters never quite felt solid.

In general, my family's reaction to this book was "meh," except for my husband who couldn't even get through it. He is not a fan of fantasy in general and found the magical elements too ridiculous. There is an enchanted ping-pong ball, a magical Costco and a herd of talking animals. The book ended with a lot of unanswered questions, but none of us were interested in reading the rest of the series to find out the answers. Appropriately, we held our book discussion at our favorite Indian restaurant and talked about how Aru and Mini dealt with feelings of insecurity, what it's like to be the children of immigrants, and the differences/similarities between Greek and Hindu mythology.