Aru Shah and the Song of Death (2019)

*A few spoilers for The End of Time.*

Book two of the Pandava quintet. In addition to featuring some new characters on the side of our heroes, the book further explores some complex themes. By now, it’s clear that the series is really setting its own path separate from the conventions of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Someone has stolen the bow and arrow of Kamadeva, the god of death, and the (falsely) suspected thief is the most newly awakened Pandava reincarnation: Brynne, a shapeshifting part asura with a chip on her shoulder and an unquenchable appetite. If Aru, Mini, and their new sister can’t recover the celestial weapon from the real thief, they’ll be stripped of their Pandava status and cast out of the Otherworld, with all memory of it erased from their minds. No pressure, right?

Let’s start with the new additions to Team Pandava. If Aru became the de facto leader when it was just her and Mini in the first book, Brynne has a much more forceful personality that frequently clashes with Aru’s. The growing pains in their relationship add interpersonal drama to this new quest, and I really enjoy watching as some of Brynne’s more guarded layers get peeled back over the course of the story. Also joining the group is Aiden—while he’s not a Pandava, he’s Brynne’s close friend, he’s a new (cute) boy at Aru’s school, and he has his own Otherworld connection. By virtue of being 1) a boy, 2) cute, and 3) not a soul sibling of Aru’s, it’s clear what’s going on there, but he’s an enjoyable character who adds a lot to the group dynamic.

But of course, this is still Aru’s story, and the deeper she gets into this demigod business, the more doubts she has: about herself/her fitness as a hero and about what she’s fighting in the first place. Some of her interactions with the Sleeper, and some of what she learned about him, planted these seeds in the first book. But now her doubts are growing. When she learns about some of the injustices the “villains” have suffered, when she learns about horrible things the gods/devas did in the past, she wonders if it can truly be right to fight the villains on the devas’ behalf. These moral questions remind me of some of the later Series of Unfortunate Events books, which can only be a good thing—even though the two series are wildly different, they both allow their middle-grade protagonists to wrestle with big dilemmas and question the rightness of their own actions.

I continue to enjoy Roshani Chokshi’s depiction of the Otherworld. This is probably the biggest similarity the series maintains with Percy Jackson, the way its mythological gods and locales are reimagined through a modern lens (that and the penchant for giving tweens ridiculously tight deadlines to accomplish a nearly insurmountable task.) I love the way Kamadeva’s domain is modeled like a stock exchange, with a ticker monitoring things like crushes and first kisses—I also really like how he explains the way his arrows actually work. I love meeting Sage Durvasa and learning that most of his time boils down to dreaming up the best, most fitting curses with which to punish people. There are so many little touches in the fleshing out of this world that are inventive, funny, and/or beautifully described.

Warnings

Violence, scary moments for kids (including a zombie-like army known as the Heartless,) some “don’t try this at home,” and strong thematic elements.