Tristan Strong Punches a Hole the Sky Review (TS #1)

Prior to this book, I’d had mixed feelings about the Rick Riordan Presents line of stories. I had loved some of the stories but couldn’t really get into others. This book made me see the true potential of these stories as I fell in love with the characters and the world. 

Tristan has been struggling with grief after he lost his best friend recently. He can’t even get his head together to compete in his boxing matches, something he and his family have always been passionate about. His parents send him to spend the summer with his grandparents in Alabama. Time away from the big city of Chicago, time to heal his wounds and grieve in peace. When he gets there, instead of being able to heal he is thrown into a completely different world that he knows nothing about. He doesn’t want to be the center of attention at all but only he has the ability to help this world

The characters and world created by this series were absolutely lovely. I didn’t know what to expect when I originally heard that this book would be based on African-American tales and mythology. Even as an African-American young adult, I didn’t really know that we had a genre of stories. Nevertheless, as the stories were told and the characters were introduced in the book, I found myself recognizing them. I recognized John Henry and Anansi and Brer Rabbit, all of these characters that I learned about as a child in picture books. I never thought of them as our version of mythology, I always just thought of them as fantasy characters. Reading this book gave me an entirely new perspective on those stories that I loved as a kid. No longer were they just stories, they were woven together into this beautiful, flawed, vibrant world by author Kwame Mbalia. I flew through this book just because I wanted to see who else would show up in this tale that I recognized. 

Tristan was an amazing main character and probably one of my favorite middle-grade fantasy MCs of all time. He was so realistic as twelve-year-old experiencing grief that no child should have to experience. He was traumatized and his family didn’t really know what to do. Therapy only slightly helped, being around those he loved only slightly helped, but being able to throw himself into a universe that needed him helped him in a way that nothing else could. The friends he made while in MidPass also stuck with me. I won’t spoil too much by revealing those characters, but trust me. You will love them just as much. 

I am writing this review after reading the final book in the series and I can say that it was totally worth it. The books only get better from here!

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a middle-grade fantasy read. Personally, as an adult reader, it’s more of a four-star read to me just because I struggle to get into this style of fantasy writing now. But I know that if I had read it at 12 that this would have been a five-star book for me, just like the Kane Chronicles actually were for me at that time. So, this book gets 5 stars. 

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 books.