I was given a copy of this book to review by the author through Goodreads First Reads.
When I first read the book description, I was excited. And expecting lots of action, cool battle scenes, an epic journey. Well, maybe my expectations weren't that unbelievably Lord of the Rings high, but they were raised due to the little blurb. Unfortunately, this book didn't meet them. It took me almost a week to get through the first chapters, and almost a month for the first half. The second half I finished in a matter of hours, that's where my action scenes were waiting! The very end felt somewhat flat and out of sync with the rest. Percival gets a B on his autobiography because he grew a backbone & changed himself in that past week, the football players agreeing to defend him because of his sister, his friends standing up to the bullies (not as off as the rest, but still...) I can't say this was a completely bad book, just don't come into it with high hopes because of how good the blurb sounds.
Percival (named after King Arthur's famed Knight) is a 'loser' nerd. He gets beat up/picked on by bullies frequently. The highlight of his week is D&D night when his friends Dillon and Chaz come over and they get lost in their campaigns. That all changes when he accidentally comes across a door in the woods behind the school while running from Huey, Dewey, & Louie, the school bullies. Going through the door he meets Arwain, and his 'knight' Tesshu. Because of this meeting, he not only involves himself, but his sister (Guinevere) and his two friends in a plot to stop the destruction of the world by the evil Raeben.
Percival's personal change that happens over this week period is somewhat realistic. He doesn't all of a sudden become an eagle after being an ostrich. After quite a bit of soul searching, and a couple life or death situations, he finds his backbone and develops his character. The rest of the motley crew, are less so. I'm still trying to figure out at what point Chaz decided he could stand up to the bullies-all through the last battle he was the doubting, some what cowardly friend-or why Dillon (even with the proof before his eyes) become the steadfast sidekick. Guinevere, like Chaz, is struck with guilt for abandoning Percival at the beginning, but even after the final battle, nothing really seemed to change in her demeanor to suggest she would risk her popularity in asking the football team to defend Percival. Was it surprising? Yes. Did it make sense? Yes, again. She did seem to develop a closer bond with Percival over everything, but at the end of the battle, she was back to acting like her old self. And just what the heck is going on with Moebius?
Personally, I would have liked the book to be a little longer with some more character development going on. This book might have appeal to a younger audience, I don't have anyone to test this theory on.