I began this series because Shannon Hale wrote book 4 and I wanted to read Shannon Hale's contribution. And I was slightly annoyed that I needed to read 3 other books first before reading hers.

This plot reminds me of Phillip Pullman's Golden Compass, with the pair bonding of animals and the general kids overthrowing pervasive evil. So, I'm slightly disappointed that the theme is being reused. But I understand. It also reminds me a bit of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' hunting of the horcruxes. But I suppose everything will tie to anything if you are looking for correlation.

I'll be interested to see how the storytelling differs in each volume since they have different authors. In that respect, this series feels like a giant story that friends in a creative writing class are all work shopping together. Like a big game of storytelling where you put you but where your friend left off. That's not done often, so I'm intrigued.

The story was starting to get a bit dull for me after the 4 had awakened their animals until the quest for Arax. At that point, the pace of the book sped up considerably.

I'll start book 2 soon.