Book Review: Prince Ombra

Reviewed By: Jennifer Jordan

Prince Ombra     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Roderick MacLeish
Class/Genre:   Fantasy   Young Adult
Tor Books, Fantasy/Young Adult, 377 pages

This is a classic tale of the heros journey and good versus evil. I read it for the first time when I was thirteen. I didnt like much at that age but I loved this book. Ive read it once every couple of years since then and Ive named my car after one of the leads. The seemingly simple premise dictates to many that it is a childrens book. The ultimate spiritual depth and complexity speaks volumes of its adult implications.

Bentley Ellicott is an eight-year-old boy struggling with acceptance in school, the absence of his mother and a crippled leg. And something that sets him far apart from the already very wary townsfolk. We are all born with a cleft above our lips where an angel placed his finger and whispered, Dont remember what you know. Bentleys is mysteriously missing. What he remembers are the lives hes lived a thousand of times before as a hero born to fight the ultimate and ever-changing evil of a being named Prince Ombra. As the insidious effects of Ombra begin to overtake the town, Bentleys situation becomes dire. A possessed man with a gun is hunting him, his own father wonders if hes sane and he begins to questions whether he is strong enough to win the fight he was born for. The only people that can help him are Dr. Kreistein, an elderly German psychiatrist, and Slally, a fellow patient that speaks a language only Bentley understands. Soon, he while has to face his ultimate fear with the fate of humanity in the balance.

This book incorporates myths, legends and fairy tales in their darkest facets as a modern morality tale. There is a Bentley in us all, struggling to be free, to be accepted and to be good. He is the hero in us all.

Jennifer Jordan

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Jennifer Jordan