Enter the Young - The Association

The Daykeeper's Grimoire
Prophecy of Days, Book 1

Author: Christy Raedeke
Genre: mystery, fantasy
Pages: 352
Publisher: Flux
Brief Summary:
The MacFirelands just inherited a Scottish castle, Breidablik from an ancestor they barely knew. Daughter Caity loves exploring the castle and Mr. Papers, the origami-folding monkey that lives there, but she is still uncomfortable with the idea of living on the island of Huracan for the foreseeable future. She misses her best friend Justine in San Francisco. Of course, staying might not be so bad if she can get to know the housekeeper's gorgeous, accented son Alex (which ought to be doable, despite his model looks, since she is the only girl his age on the island). As she explores the castle, Caity unravels a mystery and discovers a prophecy, in which she is the central figure.

Review:
I really loved the opening of this book. The characters and the inheritance plot were just ridiculous enough to be hilarious and somewhat believable. Caity seems intelligent enough, despite her constant worry about her frizzy curls (with which I totally sympathize).

As the book moved along, I became a bit more concerned and a bit less entertained. Certain things I really loved, like Mr. Papers, the capuchin monkey. He is way smarter than pretty much anyone else in the book. Also, he's just awesome.

On the other hand, the whole prophecy plot and what Caity has to do to fulfill it struck me as absurd. For one thing, Caity is told that she has to do everything, but is actually pretty much led along like a puppet by mysterious adults, who warn her not to trust other mysterious adults. Yikes. It was cool that you really couldn't tell who she should trust (although sometimes it was pretty obvious when someone was evil or good, but not always).

The Prophecy of Days is about the Mayan calendar and the fact that it ends in 2012. According to Raedeke, this may not betoken the end of the world, but merely a complete change in consciousness. To keep evil forces from preventing human's evolving to a new level, she has to get teens to start using the Mayan calendar. She makes a website, sends out an email that sounds like junk mail and it catches on like wildfire. Umm, what? This was laughable.

I have not yet decided whether I want to read the second book in the series when it comes out. Parts were really clever and interesting, but other sections were a bit boring or absurd.

"Enter the young, yeah
Yeah, they've learned how to think
Enter the young, yeah
More than you think they think
Not only learned to think, but to care
Not only learned to think, but to dare"