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(Summary)
Seth and Kendra are sent to their grandparent’s house and soon discover that their grandparents run a magical preserve: Fablehaven. On Midsummer Night’s Eve, evil creatures kidnap Grandpa. Seth and Kendra set out to save him and free a witch (Murial) to do so. Murial frees Bahumat, a demon, but Kendra succeeds in trapping Bahumat and Murial and saves Fablehaven.

(Point of View)
Fablehaven is told from a third-person point of view, where an external narrator is telling the story of Seth and Kendra Sorenson. This third-person point of view helps the author tell the stories of both Kendra and Seth even when they are in separate places. Brandon Mull made a smart choice in applying third-person into Fablehaven. Third-person allows the story to revolve around not just one character at a time, but multiple. And seeing as Kendra and Seth spend the majority of the story in different places at the same time, it allows the perspectives of both Seth and Kendra to be read and understood. Not only does this point of view help us understand the different scenarios and situations our protagonists are in, but it also helps us see how the characters feelings and personalities differ from each other, and how characters react to certain situations. On page 34, the narrator quotes in Seth’s perspective, “The porcupine was close enough that [Seth] could discern the individual quills, slender and sharp� Seth spread his arms wide, stomped a foot, and growled. The porcupine looked up, twitched its nose, and then turned from the trail.� This shows that rather a) Seth knows much about the wilderness and its inhabitants, and/or b) he sometimes acts without thinking and often makes rash decisions, but is also brave. Whereas Kendra, on the other hand, acts differently in the face of danger. On page 174, the narrator quotes in Kendra’s perspective, “Kendra shoved past Seth and jerked the window shut in time to impede the entrance of a coldly beautiful woman swathed in writhing black garments� Gazing into those empty, searing eyes froze Kendra where she stood� Her mouth felt dry. She could not swallow.� This shows that Kendra usually freezes in the face of danger, a much different response than how Seth reacts to a crisis. However, this POV is at its weakest at the beginning of the story when readers don’t expect perspectives to change mid-chapter. But despite that, third-person point of view is still the best choice for this book because Kendra and Seth are such complex characters that couldn’t really be described as well if there was only one narrator, being either Kendra or Seth.

(Opinion)
Overall, I definitely wouldn’t consider Fablehaven as one of my favorite novels. I’m not necessarily saying that it’s a bad book, it’s just that some parts of the book weren’t very interesting, and it took 160 pages to get to the conflict. But all of this could’ve been understandable, or at least ignored (after all, no book is perfect) if it wasn’t for the completely stupid decisions made by Kendra and Seth Sorenson. Some mistakes or decisions made by the protagonists were understandable, like when Seth tries to capture a fairy in a jar after discovering the truth about the magical preserve, ultimately unleashing fairy justice, turning him into some sort of walrus-human hybrid (page 143), but on page 173 when Seth was dumb enough to open the window to let in any monsters on Midsummer Night’s Eve, after multiple different people told him repeatedly not to, that was unacceptably stupid. To quote page 173, “Seth threw open the window. ‘No!� Kendra shouted, although she reflexively wanted to do the same thing.� Not only was it Seth’s poor decisions making skills, but even the narrator states that Kendra would’ve done the same thing! Plus� there were some parts in the book that were a little� uncomfortable to read, specifically in Chapter 14. I won’t quote any of the iffy moments, but if you are planning to read this book, just prepare yourself for those kinds of things. I know I really didn’t explain why it was so uncomfortable, but I don’t really feel comfortable describing what the situation is. Overall, I’m not sure I would recommend this book to any of my friends.