Amari and the Night Brothers

By: B. B. Alston

Narrated by: Imani Parks

Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best seller!

Artemis Fowl meets Men in Black in this exhilarating debut middle-grade fantasy, the first in a trilogy filled with #blackgirlmagic. Perfect for fans of Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, the Percy Jackson series, and Nevermoor.

Amari Peters has never stopped believing her missing brother, Quinton, is alive. Not even when the police told her otherwise, or when she got in trouble for standing up to bullies who said he was gone for good.

So when she finds a ticking briefcase in his closet, containing a nomination for a summer tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she’s certain the secretive organization holds the key to locating Quinton - if only she can wrap her head around the idea of magicians, fairies, aliens, and other supernatural creatures all being real.

Now she must compete for a spot against kids who’ve known about magic their whole lives. No matter how hard she tries, Amari can’t seem to escape their intense doubt and scrutiny - especially once her supernaturally enhanced talent is deemed “illegal”. With an evil magician threatening the supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she’s an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t stick it out and pass the tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.

Plus don't miss the thrilling sequel, Amari and the Great Game!

©2021 B.B. Alston (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Great Story

This book was fantastic. The story was well thought out and fun to read. I do wish that the editing was better. Despite some of the clunky transitions the story is strong enough to carry them. My children love it as well, 7 and 9, boy and girl.
I think with better editing this story could have been a truly great book. I look forward to the next if it is a series and hopefully the editing will grow as the series continues.

A solid four

This book is definitely written for a specific age range, so if you feel you’re too adult for the 11/12 year old sense of humor, you might not enjoy this tale.

I didn’t know what to expect. And while the story was simple, it was cute. We were hit over the head a few million times about how Amari is picked on. We got it. WE GOT IT. It could have been said once or twice and then alluded to. But no. How many times can the author remind the reader that Amari is going to always be picked on for something she can’t help?

Now, that said, I enjoyed many different aspects of the book. THe departments in this secret agency were fantastic. Definitely made for the young mind, but this older mind definitely got a kick out of them. The ‘bad’ guy was obvious from the moment he appeared on screen due to what he did. That’s fine. Though it was also rather sad. However, he will undoubtedly be a bad guy we will see for the rest of the series. He has to be.

It may sound like i didn’t like it. I did. I did so much I want the next book. But I hope, as Amari grows, that she faces new challenges instead of the same one hitting her ‘and us’ over the head again and again and again. And as someone who was always judged from where I came from, I get it. But being hit over the head with it once a chapter gets annoying. Learn subtlety, author.

I hope we get more of Amari’s roommate in the next book. Amari was so busy dashing off to either sulk or do her own thing that our weredragon had little page time. And, of course, we’ll always wonder - WILL Amari’s brother wake up?

Good book. Hope the next one shows more writing strengths as well as more character strength in all the characters since most of them were pretty 1 dimensional.

Still four solid stars because I will be relistening to the book.

The narration was fairly decent. Different voices for many of the main characters. A couple times her pronunciation of certain words kicked me out of the story, but that’s merely due to wherever she was from. I can handle that. There are so many American English accents, one must deal with those unique words. (Tor instead of tour)

Loved the Book!

The book was excellent and the narration was good except for Agent Fiona. The ye this and ye that sounded really out of place and got a little annoying. The emphasis was not in the right place.

Absolutely Wonderful

Love it!!!! The story and reader flowed together perfectly. I hope there are more like this.

Cute story, no HP, but cute. 3 star narration

I thought the story was cute and I liked the protagonist, Amari.
The one big struggle I had was that the narration. The narrator did a decent job with each character except for Agent Fiona. The "ye's" said with a flat American accent were terrible. I felt like there needed to be some sort of brogue for Fiona. I couldn't figure out why she kept saying "ye" instead of "you" - just didn't seem necessary and every time she was narrated, I had to grit my teeth. I hope they fix that in the next Audible book in the series.
The narrator also sounded like she was reading the book for the first time with no rehearsal or direction. She would stop and odd parts of the sentence, and basically skip some punctuation all together. There were several instances throughout book where there were odd pauses and pronunciations. It was very distracting and annoying.

Great story and narration

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, it transported me to a magical realm. I only wish the narrator could redo the narration for the Fiona character and turn her “yees” into “you”
That was incredibly distracting and unnecessary ti have her always mispronounce the word you, and you couldn’t dismiss it as an accent because there was no differed accent other than the one mispronunciation. Besides that, I loved it!

I almost forgot I was reading…

This story line will suck you right in from the beginning! I absolutely loved the way the characters played off each other and it enhanced the world that they were living in. At times I forgot that I was reading it because it felt like I was living it. 11/10 can’t wait to dive into book 2 of this new adventure.

Loved it!

Truly a wonderful book. You know it's good when you immediately start looking for the next book in the series.

Great story, perfect narrator

I’ll admit, I was pretty “meh” when I first read this to my kids. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t wow me either. I’m happy it wowed my kids enough that they wanted to hear it again, and we got the audiobook. Turns out the problem wasn’t the story- it was my mediocre narration! Imani Parks brings this story to life. A narrator can make it break an audiobook, and she does a GREAT job. She sounds like a young girl (nothing like a clearly adult voice narrating first person for a kid), all the characters have distinct voices and inflictions, and the pace is perfect. If you loved Aru Shaw or Percy Jackson, you’ll love Amari Peters.

Top of my list

I can't express enough how much I loved this book! Wonderful and highly imaginative world that the author creates. I could relate so much to the main character and the imposter syndrome that all of us seem to struggle with.

Also loved the narration. Perfect voice for the characters.

I immediately ordered and listened to the 2nd book and have now pre-ordered the 3rd. Love it!