Thursday, September 10, 2015

Zita the Spacegirl (Zita the Spacegirl #1) by Ben Hatke


Rating: ★

For years I have seen this book keep popping up on my dashboard on Goodreads and its gotten to the point that I need to check it out so that way it can go away and disappear from my life. When I first got this book I felt like this was meant for little kids and that I will not enjoy it but I was definitely wrong. The book itself with the illustrations and the texture gave off the feeling like I was reading Amulet which is one of my first graphic novel and favorite series so Zita is starting off on the right path.

We meet Zita who is your typical normal pre-teen girl who is playing around outside with her friend Joseph when out of nowhere they encounter a meteoroid crashing down. They go and explore and find this weird remote button that is hiding inside the rock and Zita decides to take it out and play with it. Joseph immediately tells her to stop but when she presses the red button, this magical portal opens up and something with tentacles reaches Joseph and takes him away. Zita panics that her friend disappears and after some moments of coherent thoughts she decides to press the button and enter the portal which leads her to another planet full of different aliens and monsters.

She sees her friend Joseph being taken away and sadly doesn't reach him on time so now she needs to find a way to save him in this sci-fi world. During her travels she encounters different creatures from robots, aliens, to even a man named Piper who has deceitful plans. We get to learn that a meteor is coming to this foreign planet and everyone is trying to flee asap while Piper is looking for star fuel to power his ship. Zita learns that the creature that kidnapped Joseph is hidden far away and that there is a prophecy in which a boy named Joseph will save the planet from a meteor. Will Joseph save the planet or will Zita rescue him and everyone else from death?

I have to admit and say that this book gives off a major Wizard of Oz vibe for me and I find that there are some similarities which probably attracted me to love this book. Zita goes off to an other worldly place (Dorothy goes to Oz), A mouse becomes her companion (Dorothy had Toto) and Zita becomes friends with a robot, an alien, and a cowardly man (Dorothy meets the tin woodsman, the scarecrow, and the cowardly lion) and its up to Zita to save everyone (Dorothy needs to kill the wicked witch in order to bring peace back to Oz and save the munchkins). I could go on listing countless similarities but I still feel that this book still has originality to it and I like how they portray a female as the man character and how she is selfless and loyal to her friends. I highly recommend everyone to read this book if you are into middle-grade, Oz, and Sci-Fi.

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