Rebel Genius (Geniuses #1) - Michael Dante DiMartino [Review]

Title: Rebel Genius (Geniuses #1)

Author: Michael Dante DiMartino

Genre: Fiction, Middle Grade, Fantasy

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Publishing date: October 4th 2016

Pages: 384   

Rating

★★★☆☆

Hello! Today I’m reviewing a book I was really excited about, Rebel Genius by Michael Dante DiMartino. The author is the co-creator of Avatar, the Legend of Aang and the Legend of Korra, I love both shows, so I was really interested in seeing what kind of story this would be.

The story takes place in a Renaissance inspired world where there is power in art, all forms of art

A Genius projecting sacred geometry.

, and it follows twelve-year-old Giacomo, an artist that draws (others sing, play music, sculpt, etc). In this world art is powerful, dangerous, and outlawed. Every artist possesses a Genius, a birdlike creature that is the living embodiment of an artist's creative spirit. Those caught with one face a punishment akin to death, so when Giacomo discovers he has a Genius, he knows he's in serious trouble.

Luckily, he finds safety in a secret studio where young artists and their Geniuses train in sacred geometry to channel their creative energies as weapons. But when a murderous artist goes after the three Sacred Tools--objects that would allow him to destroy the world and everyone in his path--Giacomo and his friends must risk their lives to stop him.

I really, really expected to love this book, and I tried to love it, but it just didn’t work for me, or it wasn’t what I was expecting.

The book premise is interesting and the setting is pretty unique. I think the strongest point of the whole book was the magic system; it was something I would never imagine, magic through geometrical shapes. I liked the general idea behind the book, but the execution was a bit poor in some aspects.

The beginning of the book is extremely slow and a big info dump through a mentor explaining Giacomo how the sacred geometry works. I was really bored and did not care about the characters at all until around page 150, where the real story and adventure begin.

Giacomo

The biggest weakness of the book was its characters. The main reason I love Avatar is for its well developed and fleshed out characters, but in this book the characters are so flat and boring it was hard to identify who was who sometimes. I didn’t like Giacomo as a protagonist, nor any of the “good guys,” for some reason I felt the most interesting characters where the bad guys.

Giacomo is a case of a “chosen one,” a special and unique boy, the only one who can save the world for some reason, even if he just started his training. Still, there was a big plot twist about him at the end that I definitely wasn’t expecting it.  

The book is enjoyable but slow and too many explanations of the magic system and the world are overwhelming. The book has illustrations that really help the reader to understand the explanations.

I recommend this if you are looking for a book with an original and creative magic system, and I would say this is one of those middle grade books that are not for everyone but for the target audience.