Series Faves: Aru Shah
Are you a book series person? I feel like they’re gaining in popularity, and it makes sense. Once a reader loves a character, they are going to want MORE. They are going to want to know what happens NEXT. I mean, there’s a reason there’s so much fan fiction out there, right?
Aru Shah by Roshani Chokshi is one of the most engaging series I’ve read in a while. I read the first three books several years ago and just finished Aru Shah and the City of Gold via audiobook. I’m still in the middle of the last book, Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality, and I just keep thinking back to how good the series is. I took a break in reading them after the third one and picked up book 4 and 5 a few weeks ago.
So….I may also feel a bit of a kindred spirit in Chokshi’s writing:
1) Aru, Mini, Brynne, Aiden call themselves “potatoes”. Guess what my group chat with my family is coincidentally called? That’s right. Potatoes.
2) Aru LOVES LOTR. Guess whose family is also obsessed? Mine. (Minus me. I don’t have anything against LOTR, I just don’t have the same enthusiasm for watching The Two Towers as much as I do for The Empire Strikes Back.) But I understand all the references.
3) Aiden’s camera is called Shadowfax, just like one of my kid’s devices is named Shadowfax. (See #2 above)
4) Pop culture/movie references: I can quote all of these along with Aru. Especially all The Princess Bride ones.
So not only do we get a great middle great/early YA adventure/fantasy series that’s grounded in Hindu mythology, but we also have likeable characters who are acting their ages (12-15 years old as the series progresses), and also acting like heroes or heroines as the sisters like to correct. But I would say adolescent demigods. Chokshi has the great skill of fleshing out the main characters so that they don’t seem like tropes or one-note characters. It helps that the voice actor, Soneela Nankani, is fantastic at differentiating Rudy from Aiden, and Aru from her sisters. Even without dialogue tags, I know exactly who is speaking.
Obviously if you’re a fan of Percy Jackson, you are going to adore Aru Shah—after all, the series is an imprint from Rick Riordan himself! See the beginning of his intro below, with first pages.
Bonus first pages of ARU SHAH AND THE END OF TIME: Riordan starts off his introduction saying he wished he had written this book and I agree because I wish I had too. Having Aru and her mom live above a museum is brilliant. And a Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture? Even better—because you just KNOW there will be some sort of portal to the start of Aru’s adventure.
I always say that 7th grade is the hardest grade socially, especially for girls. For some reason—likely due to puberty—5th through 7th grade is when some girls get mean and the friendships start to drift or implode. I have seen it over and over again in my patient families. And Aru is no different—in the opening chapter, we see three classmates coming to harass her at her home/museum. Re-reading these first chapters while also finishing up the last book really brings home the fact that Aru ends up with a found family of sorts—even if her found family is her Pandava sisters.
Even without knowing Hindu mythology, Chokshi intrigues the reader right away—Aru getting to give tours to the museum (cool!), Aru’s mom going away on mysterious trips (interesting!), and a forbidden lamp (equivalent to a loaded gun at the beginning of a story!)? Yikes. We know Aru will get in trouble right away and are invested. In fact, as I re-read these first few pages, I am tempted to start reading the first book again, even as I’m listening to the fifth one on audiobook. That’s how good these first pages are.
P.S. Little Lion did a review of the first two books back in April 2020. Reading helped us through those stressful first few months of the pandemic.
BTW, Aru Shah and the End of Time is available as a graphic novel too!
