The King's Fifth - Scott O'dell

  Hmm..... I probably would've liked this book better if I didn't have to read it for school. And read three chapters a day. (Okay, the chapters were usually very short..... it's the usually you have to be aware of.)

  Probably the first thing I noticed after reading a couple of pages was that I immediately knew why the book was called The King's Fifth. And that's a good thing; it always helps to know why a book is called what it is.

  This book has drama, really. At first I thought it'd be a total bore, however, there is usually always something that's going on and will keep you reading. The characters are never just standing there waiting for something to happen, and you're not falling asleep as you read about them waiting. You do want to know what happens at the end. It's one of those books that if you stopped reading in the middle of the book, it'd probably eat you up until you find out how things turned out.

  Of course, this genre of book isn't for everyone. Having my fill of books set in  the medieval/renaissance period, I had a general idea of how things would turn out, and having read lots of stories in the same time period, it does gets slightly boring after a while.

  The book was written in a way that made you feel as though you were reading a cartographer's  journal. Since journals are something no one ever lets me read, I really liked the way it was written. The story plays in your mind very well. You can see fear on the Indians faces, or the horses packed with bags of gold.

  Since the characters in the book were Spanish explorers, occasionally a Spanish word was written in italics. This usually didn't fog up the sentences, partially because I'm learning Spanish, but also because you can guess at the general meaning. But Spanish words were not on every page, so don't worry.   

  The ending was disappointing. Near the end, the book was great! It was my favorite part of the entire book. It was easy to read with lots of anticipation and anxious feelings... the actual ending, however, on the last page, was a bit of a let-down and didn't seem to truly follow what had happened beforehand. That was really frustrating! The ending is supposed to sum everything up, and although the book did seem finished in a sense, I'm still left wondering what will happen afterwards.   

My only complaint about this book is the upsetting ending... ... and that I had to read three chapters a day.