School

This is King Arthur in contemporary D.C. high school. It's not fantasy, just Jennifer, Lance, Elaine, Morton, Marco and a host of other characters from the legends. Great stuff. ( )

Slight spoilers ahead:
A modern retelling of the Arthur legend, set in a Maryland high school. I enjoyed this one, but I think I would have liked it more if it had been simply a modern retelling. Instead, it seems to do a quick turn into fantasy, as the characters are revealed as actual reincarnations of Arthur and his Camelot crew. ( )

It is amazing!!!!!!! ( )

You probably know Meg Cabot because she wrote The Princess Diaries. I personally really enjoy those books and like to indulge in them sometimes and appeal to the teenage girl inside of me who loves these kind of sappy dramatic stories about friendship and love and all that. So I decided to read another of her books that had sparked an interest.
I remember catching snippets of the movie for this book on the Disney Channel and being kind of disappointed with how it went down. But this was years ago, so I read this book with a very fresh mind.
Ellie Harrison is the daughter of medieval scholars who are on sabbatical to write books about their speciality – Arthurian legends. Because of this, Ellie has always had an aversion to all things medieval, and especially all things related to King Arthur. She’s even named after The Lady of Shallot. Ellie, however, is thrilled to get the opportunity to start off at a new school with a new image, something that every girl her age dreams about.
Things take a turn when she falls in love with the star quarterback, Will, who surrounds himself with popular people such as Lance (his best friend) and Jennifer (his girlfriend). Everybody loves Will, even people who hate sports, because Will has always been the champion of the people at school. Couple that with his eternally faithful dog Cavalier, his prize boat Pride Wynn, and a step-brother who hates him named Marco, the entire story reeks of Arthurian reincarnation, and it really is that.
What I loved about this story was how accurately the legend of the King Arthur was given to us and how well it played it considering the modern circumstances. What I also loved was that there was a genuine twist when it comes to Ellie’s character (but not like the movie did it). Speaking of twists, though, I was genuinely expecting that Marco wasn’t going to turn out to be Mordred, but rather Merlin, and that Mr Morton would be Mordred rather than a member of the Order of the Bear. I was hoping for a bit less predictability, but honestly it wasn’t a terrible book otherwise.
Overall I give it a 3/5. It is, after all, a book written for people way younger than me, so maybe I’m not the intended audience for this kind of book. But still, an entertaining and quick read!
( )