Moa: Book 1 by Tricia Stewart Shiu

(This is for The Moa Blog Tour, and tomorrow is the last day of the tour).

I finished reading this book last night, so I didn’t have time to post a review until now.

Release date: February 1, 2012
Publisher: Human Being Publishing
Format: ebook (provided to me in exchange for an honest review)
Age Group: Young Adults
Pages: 82 (78, not counting the title page, etc)
Source for Synopsis: Goodreads
Challenge: (personal) 2012 Reading Challenge

Hillary Hause is not a witch. But, everyone in her conservative small town thinks so. When she is given a trip to Hawaii for graduation, this energetic eighteen-year-old anticipates adventure but gets more than she bargained for when Moa, an ancient Hawaiian spirit, pays her an unexpected visit.

With the help of her older sister, Molly and her seven-year-old niece, Heidi, Hillary embarks on a journey in which she not only saves herself, her family and Moa, but also the Hawaiian Islands. In the end, she learns to accept herself and her spiritual gifts warts and all.

Some Quotes

I forgot to look for some when I was reading this book. So, this time, like a few other times, there are no quotes to share here.

Gore: No
Magic: kind of (going to other worlds and seeing ghosts, etc)
Romance: No (this is the first book that I read in a while where there was no romance in, this part at least is kind of refreshing after reading so many paranormal romances).

Action: 2 stars
Pacing: 3 stars
Plot: 3.5 stars

This is going to be a shorter review than my other reviews, for two reasons: One is because this book is short, the second is that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would when I read the synopsis and signed up for the blog tour.

The story starts with a girl named Hillary Hause, who is in a plane to Hawaii to visit her sister Molly and her niece Heidi for a vacation.

Many pages later, she meets Moa, who is a gate keeper of an ancient portal. Moa guides the sisters and Heidi in a journey to save Hawaii and the world.

Of course at first, Hillary and Molly are reluctant to believe Moa, but eventually they do and then they begin their “magical” journey to save the world. They face many problems along the way: a long lost relative who wants them to stop what they’re doing, for his own selfish reasons; self doubt; certain humans with special powers called Aneunues; etc.
The girls also encounter many magical elements along the way: those other worlds where Moa takes them (I forget what they’re called), guardian angels, their other selves, chakra meditation; etc.

I am finally done reading this book, it took me four days to read, that’s how long it takes me to read a 200 page book. You’re probably wondering why I wanted to read this book if I didn’t enjoy it, I’ll explain that later on in the review.

The 1st to 3rd person jumps and the writing style just made it too hard to follow. I don’t know how others on goodreads didn’t end up getting confused, but then again, we are all different and have different likes and dislikes.
It seemed like it wasn’t edited properly. When I was reading this book and the point of view suddenly changes from Hillary’s to Moa’s without any warning or indication, it got very confusing. In some books the name of the person who’s pov it is is written underneath the chapter number, and in many other books, the pov changes to another person’s in the next chapter, like in the Charmed books.

There were a few things that I liked about this book: the concept, when I read the synopsis after hearing about the tour, it sounded interesting and I wanted to read it, but after reading it, I have a totally different opinion;

I explained above, one of the things that I disliked in this book, some others are: the long drawn out spiritual journeys and the meditating (it seemed like that’s what most of the book focused on), it felt like we were getting lessons on meditating and stuff, and if I had wanted to learn how to meditate (I already know how, but I don’t meditate, I’m not a very patient or calm person) I would have borrowed a non fiction book that teaches meditation, I just wanted to read a good and enjoyable story about magic, but unfortunately for me, that was not the case; etc.

I know that it sounds like I hated this book, I didn’t, but I didn’t love it either, it’s average for me, as I said, the concept was really good and it had potential to be a really great story, but lack of depth in the characters, the constant switching from 3rd person to 1st person without warning, and lack of real magic (as in the kind I’d rather see and read about, like in Charmed, and The Vampire Diaries). Especially because of the last two that I just said, it wasn’t an enjoyable read or a favourite for me.

After reading many fictional stories about witches, I didn’t like how any of them are portrayed: weak, only have psychic powers, can’t fight in a battle, hide because they’re scared of getting caught and executed, etc. But in Charmed, the witches are awesome and they kick butt, I wish other magic/witch stories were like that or even close to that, that’s one of the reasons why I’m writing my own novel.

I wasn’t expecting the ending, that surprised me a bit. Even though this book ends with a cliff hanger, I’m still not in much of hurry to read the next one (even though I have it), but I will try to read it soon so that I don’t get confused and forget some of the things that happened in this book. This book just didn’t work for me, although it might to others, those whoa’re actually interested in this stuff and don’t mind the constant pov switching.

So far there are two books in this series, I don’t know of there are going to be more or if thats it for this series:

-Moa (published February 1, 2012)
-The Statue of Ku (published May 10, 2012).

If you want to read more reviews about this book, go to Goodreads and read the reviews in the comment section or go to other websites.

I rated this book: 2.5 stars, (I didn’t make any half star pictures yet, but I might soon).