Amari and the Night Brothers

Amari and the Night Brothers

by B. B. Alston
Genres: Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic
Published on January 19, 2021
Pages: 432
Format: Audiobook, eBook Source: Library

Amari Peters has never stopped believing her missing brother, Quinton, is alive. Not even when the police told her otherwise, or when she got in trouble for standing up to bullies who said he was gone for good.

So when she finds a ticking briefcase in his closet, containing a nomination for a summer tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she’s certain the secretive organization holds the key to locating Quinton—if only she can wrap her head around the idea of magicians, fairies, aliens, and other supernatural creatures all being real.

Now she must compete for a spot against kids who’ve known about magic their whole lives. No matter how hard she tries, Amari can’t seem to escape their intense doubt and scrutiny—especially once her supernaturally enhanced talent is deemed “illegal.” With an evil magician threatening the supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she’s an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t stick it out and pass the tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.

Amari Peters was just lost her scholarship to her expensive private school. It doesn’t matter that the white girls had been picking on her for a long time. She hit back once and now she is out. Nothing has been going right for her or her mother since her brother Quinton disappeared months ago.

The police haven’t been able to find him. Despite her family knowing that he had a job, the police say he was unemployed. They are treating him like a gang member who disappeared.

When a mysterious messenger tells her that she is getting a package, she finds out about the supernatural world that her brother was involved with. He wasn’t just involved. He was a superstar. Now she’s been nominated to start her own training. But her newly enhanced talents make her just as much of a target here as she was as a poor Black girl in her previous private school.

This book was fun. I like middle grade books because they are all about an exciting and fast moving plot. I found myself switching back and forth between the ebook and audiobook depending on what I was doing just to see what came next.

This book is more Men in Black Jr. than your typical magical school story. Amari is in a summer program where trainees choose jobs that they would like to train for. They have to compete to get into the programs of their choice. The competitions get more intense over the course of the summer. If you get kicked out of a competition then you leave the camp. Amari has to stay in order to try to figure out what happened to her brother.

She only has a few friends there but they are working together to solve the mystery. I love her roommate who is a weredragon who hasn’t learned to shift yet. She is also a genius inventor with a gadget for anything. She is Q to Amari’s Bond.

This the first book of the series so I’m interested to see where they go next.