The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull

I just finished this book 15 minutes ago and I loved it. A war over candy? Of course! No, actually, it's about magical candy that lets a team of 4 children participate in a war between magicians. They get really cool powers that last as long as the candy does. The ending rocks!

There seem to be some borrowed elements from Harry Potter, but I think that's inevitable. Practically every fantasy writer since Tolkien has produced a variation of one of his themes and Harry Potter has surpassed the popularity of Lord of the Rings. I'm saying that it's going to be hard to not copy Harry Potter, or even to avoid being accused of copying Harry Potter if there are any plot elements in common with a Harry Potter book.

Wow, was that a tangent! Anyway, the feel of Candy Shop War reminded me very much of the Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld (author of the Uglies series). I loved Midnighters (and Uglies!), so this is a good thing.

Brandon Mull (author of The Candy Shop War, which is, after all, the book I'm trying to write about here) also wrote the two Fablehaven books, which I also highly recommend. There is a serious spate of quality fantasy fiction coming from LDS authors recently. Brandon Mull and Brandon Sanderson (author of Elantris, which I intend to blog about soon) are joining the ranks of Shannon Hale and Stephenie Meyer, who have joined Orson Scott Card in writing exceptional fantasy.

Well, I've been talking all around this book and not much about it, but that's because I don't want to give anything away, but I'd love to discuss it with someone who has also read it. OK, to be fair, here is a link to the Amazon summary of The Candy Shop War, so go over to Amazon and read about The Candy Shop War if you still need convincing.