The Lost Years of Merlin

Merlin. So many novels written, so many myths compiled, so many hearts taken. As the third book I’ve read which included the legendary wizard Merlin, I’m undecided whether The Lost Years deserves my favoritism or. . .if I can’t compare it to anything else because everything else is so different.

In The Lost Years of Merlin by T.A. Barron, a young boy called Emrys was washed ashore ancient Wales with no memory of the past seven years of his life. The time between the prologue and first chapter spans five years, and Emrys is a twelve-year-old, living with a woman who proclaims she is his mother. But he can’t believe her—and he wants to find out what happened in his childhood. Through a series of strange events, riding on the tales his beautiful mother-figure Branwyn told him, he sets out to find his past. . .and encounters a terrifying adventure along the way.

It took a long time before I warmed up to this novel. At first I condemned Barron as trying too hard to write a story that amused and electrified. (If you’re a writer, do you know the way your sentences sound when you’ve tried too hard to make them sound, well, almost like a movie script? I certainly do, and that’s what Barron sounded like much of the time.) If he’d just laid off a little, the writing could have been more appealing. Pacing also seemed a little off-kilter, but this problem is hard to explain in the case of this book. I disliked Shim, the “little giant”: all too often the “comic relief” of a book or movie is just unlikeable and more dorky than funny. And Rhia, the main female character, was a little too perfect and unapproachable. But the plot itself was quite good, and T.A. Barron did a wonderful job in maintaining readers’ interest.

Altogether, I think I’ll pass this book as an 8. This is quite far above what it would have been about a quarter of the way through—I’d have given it a six. And halfway through a seven. And if I don’t stop talking soon, I’ll give it a nine. . . .