All the stories are true | The Alchemyst

The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #1)

Published: May 22nd 2007 by Delacorte Press

Genre: young adult, fantasy

Goodreads summary: Read the first book in the New York Times bestselling The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, perfect for fans of The Maze Runner and Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

He holds the secret that can end the world.

The truth: Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on September 28, 1330. Nearly 700 years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life.

The records show that he died in 1418.

But his tomb is empty.

The legend: Nicholas Flamel lives. But only because he has been making the elixir of life for centuries. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects—the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. That's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it.

Sometimes legends are true.

And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.

REVIEW

After hearing my boyfriend talking about this series for two years, I finally gave in and read it. It totally felt like this book had been written almost ten years ago, so I feel like my younger self would have loved it so much more than my twenty years old self did, but it was still a good book. This book was written like YA was back in the day, but my expectations have changed, here was the problem.

Starting with the plot, this book was quite predictable, because it’s the type of book we’ve all read a thousand times before, with teenagers finding out our world is bigger than they thought and they’re special snowflakes meant to save it. I don’t think many things happened, it really felt like an introduction to this world, but it has so much potential for the rest of the series. As The Alchemyst was more of a set-up, the main storyline was pretty cool and I’m eager to see where the author is going with it. I enjoyed that this book had multiple points of view, especially with John Dee’s one, which was interesting, as he was the antagonist of the series and it’s rare to have it.

The world was interesting, because it was based off every lore of ever, which means the author has infinite possibilities, so I’m excited for this. He talked about Egyptian mythology, but also Celtic’s with the Morrhigan, which reminded me, in that aspect, of The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney. However, I was annoyed at the amount of info-dump there was during the book, which led to irritation and boredom while reading it. There was so much information I couldn’t process all of it, so it’s likely I’ll have forgotten most of it by the time I read the second book. Because of that, Nick’s point of view was one of the hardest to get through, because he was explaining the world All. The. Time.

I never understood how Nicolas had escaped Dee for so long, as his alias was “Nick Fleming”. It was so obvious that it was ridiculous. I think the author didn’t dwell too long on that, but because of it, I felt so convenient that Dee found him just when Josh and Sophie were there THAT summer. But whatever. I still need to give this book a bonus point because the author remembered his characters had parents and thought an excuse for them, because it rarely happens, you know? Nevertheless, I found the magic system to be amazing and I cannot wait to read more on that (but please, no more infodump).

While the main characters were deeply annoying, I think that Scott portrayed realistic teenagers. They felt hot-and-cold, being real clever at times and totally dumb at others, but well, I could understand it. It prevented me to care for them though… But maybe it’ll be better in the sequels. Nevertheless, I liked the situation the author put the twins in, because it will lead to so much tension in the next books. I cared more about the secondary characters, because they were mythical beings, which made them so much more interesting.

Overall, I took way too long to read this and because of that, I wasn’t a huge fan of this book. I still went through it pretty quickly, so it still had an addictive quality to it, but it was predictable and had tons of info-dump, even though the world was interesting. This book must be aimed at middle schoolers, even though the characters are fifteen, in my opinion. I have hopes the sequel will improve a lot, because the characters will get through some development, and the plot will be more exciting.

Have you read this series? Do you think it improves in the later books? Are you fascinated with alchemy and want more books about it?