{"id":45050,"date":"2026-05-20T22:54:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=45050"},"modified":"2026-05-20T22:54:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:54:30","slug":"review-of-the-heart-of-the-world-by-amie-kaufman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=45050","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Heart of the World, by Amie Kaufman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Heart of the World<\/em><\/p>\n

by Amie Kaufman
\nread by Nikki Patel, Homer Todiwalla, Suzie Rai, Vidish Athavale, Mela Lee, and Steve West<\/p>\n

Listening Library, 2024. 11 hours, 22 minutes.
\nReview written March 25, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

I have to say that I love the new trend of writing duologies instead of trilogies. There’s still some suspense waiting for the next volume, but you don’t have to do it all over again and wait for a third volume.<\/p>\n

The Heart of the World<\/em> finishes the story begun in The Isles of the Gods<\/a><\/em>, about a prince and a sailor girl involved in international politics, doing magic, and meddling with the gods.<\/p>\n

There’s no way to really set up this book without giving away what happens at the end of the first book, so let me speak in general terms. You’ve got five main viewpoint characters all voiced with different narrators. In this book, the gods find a way to show up in the human world, channeling some of their power through our protagonists and antagonist. And the gods are spoiling for a fight.<\/p>\n

The last time the gods fought, an entire country was turned into a barren wasteland. Can our heroes stop the gods? Do they even want to, or is the gods’ influence too great?<\/p>\n

A nice touch in this volume is that Selly is able to help Leander bear the load of the goddess’s power. <\/p>\n

The audio production for both books is outstanding, with all the narrators excellent, and my all-time favorite audiobook narrator, Steve West, voicing the prince. The characters I was getting tired of in the first volume got more interesting when empowered by a god and when planning a double cross. Oh, and there’s a scholar who tries to save the world through research – with several great lines about how awesome librarians are. <\/p>\n

This is a tale well-told of magic and power and love. May our characters keep the world from getting blown apart.<\/p>\n

amiekaufman.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/heart_of_the_world.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/a> for more reviews and talk about books.<\/p>\n

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Heart of the World by Amie Kaufman read by Nikki Patel, Homer Todiwalla, Suzie Rai, Vidish Athavale, Mela Lee, and Steve West Listening Library, 2024. 11 hours, 22 minutes. Review written March 25, 2025, from a library eaudiobook. Starred Review I have to say that I love the new trend of writing duologies instead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,9,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-fantasy","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45050"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46539,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45050\/revisions\/46539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}