The True Adventures of Nicolo Zen

It felt like the end of the world. Everything Nicolo knew was gone in the blink of an eye: his parents, his sisters, and his home. Suddenly an orphan on the streets with only what he could fit in a bag (his father’s knife, his clarinet, his mother’s bracelet, and one of his sisters’ combs), he leaves his hometown of Mazzorbo to go to Venice. There he makes a life-changing decision—to join an all-FEMALE orphan orchestra. From there, Nicolo Zen’s magical, musical adventures with his two female friends from the orphanage—the talented Julia and the beautiful Adriana—begin. But will they ever manage to fully escape the horrors of the orphanage?

I quite liked The True Adventures of Nicolo Zen. It was kind of slow at first, but by the end I was hooked (sort of like my experience with the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series). The magic clarinet is cool and I liked Adriana a lot, but my most favorite character(s) may have been the multiple magician Maxes—because they’re funny and…magic.