AMETHYST: PRINCESS OF GEMWORLD - Shannon Hale

3.5 stars

Life lessons hidden amongst a gemstone-world filled with heart and humor... a great graphic novel to share with a young reader.

Artwork: ★★★★
Plot/Pacing: ★★★
Characters: ★★★

A disclaimer: I am barely knowledgeable on the DC Comics universe. I have enjoyed reading several of the young reader graphic novels coming out of DC, but all of my enjoyment and review base comes from face-value reviews—I do not have any prior knowledge/opinions on the characters in each series.

Amaya, princess of House Amethyst in Gemworld, is in trouble. A powerful young girl with a lot of ability and not a lot of life experience, she accidentally creates a huge mess in her parent's castle and breaks their largest protector gemstone.

She wasn't ready for the consequences of her actions...

Amaya needs a reality check—so her parents send her and an adult caretaker to Earth for a while. It's supposed to be for one week.

But then, 3 years later, we meet Amaya as a middle schooler and to our surprise, she's lost ALL of her memories of her time on Gemworld. Something is afoot.

With magic, memory, and family all tying together into one purple-tastic adventure, this graphic novel was a ton of fun.

I thought the artwork for this one was beautiful. I loved the artist's play on the all of the purple tones of Gemworld, and the fun style of all of the panels for each plot point.

Amaya and her antics were interesting. As a mid-20s adult, I'll admit I had a hard time really staying invested in her journey...but this seemed to really be an age thing, as the story itself and the plot progression did not have any issues in it. Just too young for this particular reader.

I recommend to anyone with a young one at home who's interested in comic book worlds! (And for anyone who loves purple, obviously.)

Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.