“There are a number of ways to hide a memory, should one ever wish to attempt such a dangerous thing… If Henry Jolt knew of the secret memory his grandfather kept hidden in the wardrobe of his room at the rickety Breakfast Creek nursing home, everything would have turned out differently. He would probably, in fact, be dead.”

It is the summer of 1999 in the small, unassuming town of Breakfast Creek and sixteen-year-old Henry Jolt would like nothing more than to finish his school year and spend time with his AV club friends and his younger brother, Arnold. But he never could have guessed that his discovery of a magical key and an innocuous detention would lead to the execution of his school principal by a demonic man known as the Red General.

Pulled together by circumstance, Henry along with his fellow detention-mates, Melanie, Julia, Hugh, and Aiden, are forced to flee from the General of Darkness with his penchant for collecting children, escaping through a magical green door opened by Henry’s key and entering another world.

It is in this other world where Henry, Melanie, Julia, Hugh, and Aiden learn about a secret curse plaguing Henry’s family, the Red General after them, and about Chrysalis School, one of the three magical schools within the multi-verse that has been closed for the past fifty-five years… until now.

And now, the course of their lives will never be the same…

The Chrysalis Key by E.P. Bali is a young adult fantasy novel filled with dangerous family secrets, demonic generals, dark (and light) magic, death, and doorways to other worlds. Plus, throw in a wide array of characters, action and adventure, and a thread of mystery and voila! I was hooked by this book upon reading the synopsis—I mean Harry Potter meets The Breakfast Club, but darker, let’s just say that I was intrigued. And, overall, I really enjoyed the book and, knowing that it is the start of a seven-book series, found it to be a solid opener to introducing the characters, the world, and the magic and setting the stage for the rest of the series.

The Chrysalis Key promises three things with regards to the world of the novel: the story being set in 1999, taking place in Australia, and, of course, magic! And it sure delivers! The novel strikes a nice balance between the real and the magical, between our world and the more magical world of Chrysalis (as well as the other magical locations that the characters travel to throughout the novel). Bali clearly defines both the magical and non-magical worlds of the novel, creating a visible contrast between all of the worlds which are explored on the page and creating a strong sense of “place” in terms of which world any particular scene is set in. I feel as though there is a lot more to be explored within the various magical worlds of the multi-verse and that Bali has set the stage nicely for these other worlds to be explored as the series progresses; I believe that there is especially more to be explored revolving around Chrysalis—some of my favorite descriptions and images from the novel come from the scenes set at Chrysalis School and I wish that there were more of them because I found them to be mesmerizing.

And as someone born in the late 1990s, I enjoyed the references throughout the novel to the time period. Between VHS tapes, The Truman Show, and 90s Disney movies, the novel is rife with references to the time period and clearly defines the era in which the story is set. However, I did wish that the time period played more into the story somehow as Bali’s choice to set the story in 1999 (especially when this is a point mentioned in the synopsis) seems very intentional, but has not really had any big pay off or import as of yet with the exception of references to the time period.

In terms of the writing, I found the story very easy to read and to be written in such a manner so that it is very easy to enter the world of the novel. The novel is filled with vivid images and descriptions which, as previously stated, really make the world of the novel, including the physical setting, the characters, and the various aspects of the different locations, come to life. The dialogue between the characters also, for the most part, seemed very natural and real and worked to showcase a lot about the individual characters.

However, the book dragged for me at some points and I feel as though it could have used some tightening and condensing. There were some scenes, events, and conversations that occurred within the novel that I felt could have been cut as they did not add much to the story overall (they were either out of place, held no real value to the plot, and/or were never brought up again), which would have worked to keep the story from dragging and kept the action going.

As per usual, the characters were definitely the highlight of the story for me. The novel includes a wide array of characters, including a number of point of view characters, who were all very unique and distinct in their own right. While the novel strongly focuses on the five main protagonists—Henry, Hugh, Aiden, Melanie, and Julia—I liked how Bali took the time to explore various aspects of both the other narrators as well as the side characters. I enjoyed learning more about the various characters over the progression of the novel and seeing different sides of them that were not apparent at first glance, witnessing their character growth and development as the story unraveled. Out of the novel’s five main protagonists, I found Henry to be the most developed as well as my favorite of the group (Aiden and Hugh are probably tied for a close second) and while the novel follows multiple points of view, it is definitely Henry’s story to tell (he also has the most chapters out of all of the characters). I also liked the relationships and dynamics between the characters that were explored throughout the novel, particularly between Henry and Aiden, Aiden and Hugh, Henry and Arnold, and Hugh and Amos (the latter two I wish that we saw more of and definitely expect to be explored more in the following books), and I enjoyed witnessing how these relationships and dynamics showed off different aspects of the various characters.

However, in a Breakfast Club-esque manner, each of the five protagonists falls strongly into a sort of “character stereotype,” which means that they sometimes have the potential to lean too strongly into these stereotypes (I found this to especially be the case regarding Julia, which might explain why she was definitely my least favorite out of the five). I hope to see each of the characters grow more into themselves as the series progresses, which Bali strongly seems to suggest to be the case with the direction each of the characters took in their final point of view chapter.

And while the protagonists are pretty well-developed, I really wanted to know more about the side characters, particularly characters such as Calomere, Rose, Amos, Julian, and Clementine who have ties to Chrysalis and who I found to be very intriguing characters, despite not knowing too much about them. I hope to see more attention paid to these side characters in the next books, which I believe will be the case, particularly considering that it seems as though more attention will be paid to Chrysalis School based upon the events of this installment.

I found the mystery aspect to be one of the strong suits of the novel as a whole. The story itself is littered with various mysteries to be solved and twists and turns to unravel alongside the characters, with almost every new chapter seeming to introduce a new secret or mystery to discover the answer to or providing another twist to an already introduced mystery. In this manner, I liked how the novel slowly worked towards revealing the answers to these various mysteries and twists in a slow, natural way so that more clues were gathered as the story progressed. Each of the five main protagonists have their own problems to solve and secrets to explore, but I liked how there are threads of mystery that weave throughout the group (such as the mysteries and secrets surrounding Henry’s grandfather) and it takes all of them working together to eventually solve them, which I greatly enjoyed as each character was able to bring something different to the table in terms of working to navigate the various twists and turns of the novel. While many of these mysteries are solved by the novel’s end, Bali still leaves quite a few to be solved in the following books (including some that are never posed outright, but that I still really hope that we are provided an answer to), but just the right amount so that it did not seem as though things were left unresolved. And the last five chapters? Those endings? Bali has definitely set the stage for more twists to come in the proceeding installments.

Overall, The Chrysalis Key is a solid debut that I would recommend to readers who enjoy young adult fantasy books filled with dynamic casts of characters (who just so happen to be thrown together by circumstance), elements of magic (both light and dark), family secrets (and curses), and action and adventure (which includes traveling between various magical worlds) and I am very interested to see where the story goes next!