ISBN: 978-1733798204
Publisher/date: E.J. Miranda (September 18, 2019)
Genre: YA Fantasy
Series: Julian Fox (Book 1)
"It is said that dreams are just that: only dreams. But believe me, this is not always true. Some dreams are as real as the dreamer.
Thanks to their dreams, dreamers can receive the special visit of eternal wisdom that has inspired the creativity of great inventors, scientists, musicians, and even writers throughout the ages.
This creative wisdom is not always the type that appears to the eager conscience. Sometimes, a Defiler, a destroyer of dreams, is the one who tries to appear before the dreamer. These creatures were once humans, but they allowed their pain and desire for revenge to take over and seek the same miserable fate for the one who dreams.
You must not fear — Dream Guardians, also known as Kelsdrant, will always protect the one who dreams, even with their own life. They are people of flesh and bone, just like you and me, or at least they are on Earth.
The following story is dedicated to the fun, extravagant, and enlightening life of Julian Fox, the Dream Guardian.
Be prepared, dear reader. It is time to dream, laugh, reflect, and even maybe cry.
Welcome to the Land of the Wise Dreams."
As a book blogger, I take my reviews very seriously. An author put quite a lot of their heart and soul into what I read in most cases, and I treat them as such. When an author sends me a book to review, it's much harder than when I receive it from a publisher, because I honestly feel terrible writing a bad review. But I also do not want to be dishonest with my readers.
So when I started reading Julian Fox, and it came across a bit strange and very pretentious, I did a bit of research, hoping to find more info on what the author intended when writing this book. Hoping that a look at the person would give me insight into the book.
And discovered the problem. E.J. Miranda is actually a celebrated Columbian writer, and this book was originally written in Spanish and translated to English. From the looks of it, it was directly translated and not ghost written.
Now, this may not always cause problems. But it did here. Julian and his brother have a competitive prankster relationship, and the comedy and pithiness between them didn't translate through. They sound like Paris Hilton meets Belvedere the butler with their word choices, but act like typical siblings. It was confusing.
On top of that, half the time I really wasn't sure what was going on, and I'm attributing much of that to a lot of innuendo and read-between-the-lines type stuff that was lost in translation.
The plot was original, but I just didn't get it. So. If you can read in Spanish, maybe try this in its original language. If you can't, I'm not going to recommend this one.
2/5, I'm calling this one a good effort by the author, but lost in translation.