Kingdom Keepers Review (Part 1)

Last year on our anniversary trip to Disney Land, Megan and I came across this series in one of the stores off main street. I as initially intrigued by this imaginary tale of kids getting stuck in the park after dark where Disney Magic comes to life. I thought it was a cool idea for a series and even Megan said she was interested in reading.

My plan was to gift her these last Xmas and we could read them together but I forgot about them until a way after, so instead gave them to her as an anniversary present for this year!.....which by then she'd forgotten all about them and had no interest whatsoever in reading them. But I was still wanting to read them so I did.

Here is my summary review: It sucked. Bad.

Never could I have imagined the series would be so awful. The reviews online had been glowing, but I soon discovered they were written by Disney "Zombies" who accept any crap on a plate that's given to them. These was beyond horrible.

Believe me, I was prepared for some bad things. Like cliches such as "The real power is within your heart" along with silly mumbo jumbo magic to explain bad plot points. But I still thought it'd be entertaining.....it was not.

Now let me go into detail. I'll use bullet points to make this easier on the eyes, because there is a LOT wrong with this series. (WARNING: SPOILERS!)

1) Trying to mix Science with Magic

In the book the kids are modals for holograms that are used as Guides to Disney World's park. But at night (when the kids fall asleep) they are magically transferred into their hologram selves into the park. If the author had left it as simple as that I would have been ok, but he felt the need to explain how holograms work.

He also had the kids turning into their human selves while asleep and their hologram selves while awake, all the while making up reasons for why this could happen. (but it only happened for certain characters in the novel. Not all the kids were able to do this)

The author attributes this in the poorest way possible by basically saying the other kids "Don't try hard enough", thanks genius. 

But the Author Ridley Pearson, insist on reminded his audience that science can explain even magic! One example is the kids set up a computer program which can block them from entering the Magic Kingdom whenever they fall asleep.

But hold on, we're told in the first chapter that "magic" is the reason the kids transport...yet a computer program can stop....magic.....yeah.

2) Poor character development

There are 5 kids at first and you really only can tell apart 2. The author does a terrible job making you care about a single one of them and you find out that the main character is the only one you have interest in, though it's not much since he's boring as well. Characters are described in bland generic ways in each novel.

Finn is the leader, Philby is the "smart" one, Charlene the "cute" one, Maybeck.....um....can't recall, Willa.....is a girl and there's a bully at school who is constantly described as "dumb" with pimples all over his face and built like a refrigerator. (We're told this in every book he's in)

3) Too much pandering to the fans

It's clear Pearson read each and every complaint about his books online from the fans. Because some of the "retcons" he made in future novels reek of desperation in giving the fans what they originally wanted.

Finn's love interest, bounces around to almost the entire cast of woman as the author's taking a poll on who the fans want him to be with the most. He's given a girlfriend in the first few novels, only to break it off in a terribly written excuse. Here's the just of it:

Amanda: Do you like ____?
Finn: No.
Amanda: Yes you do! (runs away)
Finn: ......?

I'm not kidding. That's almost word for word how it went down. Sure they come back again in later novels, but you're like "What the heck was that about?!" I can only imagine it was a group of teenie boppers complaining about their being together in the first place so the author (not having a clue how break ups work) changed the direction of both characters within 2 pages of written dialogue.

Another examples are characters doing a 180 from one book to the next. Stitch, in an early novel is described as the bad guy, who is chasing the heroes. Obviously, Stitch fans were not happy about that so in the next novel the author explains it all (in 2 pages) that Stitch was under a curse at the time and wasn't responsible for his actions. He even helps the Keepers briefly before he's never heard from again. (Happy now fans?!"

Ok, that's it for now, I'll write more about this later...