Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins

Well, first of all, I finally figured out what the last part of Gregor’s equation was and it’s Redwall. How did I work that one out, you say? There are mice in this one! Only on the periphery, but they’re there, so Alice in Wonderland + City of Ember + Rats of Nimh + Redwall = Gregor the Overlander.

Gregor just keeps getting better and better. The characters are all developing nicely – especially Gregor, he’s so noble and brave (but still genuinely scared of a lot of the things he has to do, he just does them anyway) and just plain good. Which usually, I don’t like – I prefer my heroes to be ever-so-slightly amoral (hi, Artemis!) - but I like him. And Ripred – oh, Ripred! Gregor gives him bubble gum and he has what is becoming my favorite line of the series (made me laugh out loud for longer than it probably should have) - he just gets more and more real every time – he’s gruff and harsh, but when it matters, he understands and, even though he’d rather cut out his own tongue than admit it, he really does care about Gregor and his grudging acceptance of being the Underland’s warrior. I’m really worried that he’s not going to make it much further in this series.

Speaking of which, that’s another thing I like about these books. Collins isn’t afraid to kill people. Sure, so far it hasn’t been main characters, but it’s always somebody that you’ve come to care about and it’s that element of risk and that there will be consequences for things that make the book seem more real. Again, I don’t want to give too much away, but there’s still one member of Quest #2 who hasn’t shown up yet and I was really hoping she would. I’m not giving up yet!

So in this one, the Quest involves finding the cure to a plague that is spreading through the Underland, affecting any of its warm-blooded inhabitants. Including Ares (Gregor’s bat) and his mother (Gregor’s, that is, not Ares’ mother). Pretty good incentive to go on a Quest, no? And a good twist at the end which I did not see coming, but makes a very good point and has ramifications that I don’t think we’ve seen the end of yet.

My rating: A-