The Marvelous Effect Book

I give this book a 5 based on how I felt reading it as a kid, not how I feel after reading it now that I'm 21. But man, back when I was 9 or so? In the middle of a Children of the Lamp hole, looking for something to read? And coming straight off His Dark Materials and being ramped up by high sci-fi fantasy fusion? Seeing a Black boy and a Black girl fighting monsters on the cover of a book was the most amazing thing when I was nine. At 21 years old, I can honestly say I havent seen any book with a similar scene on it in all these years. The cover drew my eye, and the authentic cultural experience and imaginative world building kept my attention. Is it well written? No, I don't think so. The plot also isn't the best structured thing ever, and the author unfortunately sacrificed fully contextualizing the character's experiences to tease the sequels instead. But it was a fun, imaginative story about Black kids fighting aliens when I needed a fun, imaginative story about Black kids fighting aliens. So in recognition of that little nine year old that would grow into a 13 year old that wrote white characters by default for way too long, I happily give this book a 5. Even in the finer literature world, a lot of the classic stories we love and adore don't stand up to the test of time. Longevity is indeed a valid metric for the measure of a good story, but sometimes the best stories are just the ones we needed to read when we first encountered them.