Tracy Curran, AKA The Breadcrumb Forest, has set off on an intergalactic adventure in Lou Treleaven’s, Turns Out series;
Both stories, artfully written, draw you in from the off. The plots are pacy, fun and full of satirical humour. Jasper is a likeable main character (or rather main alien) with a unique and slimy heritage that allows him to shape-shift into the most unlikely of creatures. Like me, Jasper doesn’t have a clue about alien life, but is whizzed off on a slimetastic, deliciously gross journey through a universe that should feel complex but doesn’t. Lou Treleaven’s world-building is visual, 3D but beautifully simple. The evil emperor of the Andromedan galaxy wants to take over all other galaxies and Jasper needs to stop him. The End. But the comical and imaginative detail that is put into these worlds makes the novel; slime, mines, a Big Green Space Busting-Machine and a spiky purple ball of an emperor- what’s not to love?
I adored the humour in the books. The sharp dialogue between Jasper and his sister was spot on and the parallels to the real world were hilarious. I loved Asbi’s supermarket and Harry Handsome, the vain and sickly sweet popstar who turns out to be crucial to the plot in the most ingenius way. The shape-shifting is both gross and strangely satisfying and the villain is full of dark comedy. Fluffy provides the essential ‘cute space pet’ status and all is set for a riotous and epic adventure.
I also loved the family dynamics which ran throughout the novels. The families are anything but conventional but are nonetheless filled with love. Jasper may have to come to terms with having two different families in two different galaxies (and from two different species) but varying family set-ups will not be alien to many young readers and the relationships between Jasper and Holly, Bill and Mary and his birth parents are touching. Even the biological changes that Jasper goes through with his shape-shifting may seem rather extreme but will be relatable to the pre-teen age.
I highly recommend this series, which is left open-ended and set to continue. It completely won me over with its outer-space comedy, its pace (across space), and the outer-this-world, squelchy plot.
A shooting star of a novel!
Thank you!
Read the full review and more from Tracy here!
Pick up your copy of Book one in the Turns Out series, here! And pre-order book two here!