The Secret of Lillian Velvet by Jaclyn Moriarty

The Secret of Lillian Velvet is an absolutely mind-blowing and amazing novel by Jaclyn Moriarty. This book is about (obviously)Lillian Velvet. Lillian Velvet is a very lonely child for a number of reasons: the only person she’s lived with in years is her strict, cranky, mean, grandmother, she is homeschooled and her grandmother won’t let her go out, she hasn’t seen another child in years. However, all this changes on her tenth birthday when her grandmother gives her a pickle jar full of gold coins and some ambiguous instructions that state that she shouldn’t use all the coins in one day. This is especially confusing as the instructions also state that she shouldn’t leave the house, either; how is she supposed to use the coins without leaving the house? It all (sort of) makes sense when she gets whisked to another world called the Kingdoms and Empires. When Lillian gets there, she’s faced with an incredibly daunting task. Their world is falling apart, and she might be the only one that can save it.

In the Kingdoms and Empires, Lillian finds multiple friends that she never had at home. However, they all seem to be trapped or in grave danger, and are incredibly close to death. One of them is a boy about to be crushed to death by gravel, another being a girl who almost gets killed by freezing cold Shadow Magic. Lillian must save them all or be faced with the crushing guilt of having a chance to save someone, and not taking it.

As Lillian unravels the mysteries of the Kingdoms and Empires, she discovers a startling truth: she possesses the ability to traverse through time. Each person she saves is linked to a larger conflict engulfing the realm, a war threatening to destroy them all. Failure to intervene not only burdens Lillian with overwhelming guilt but also spells the annihilation of an entire world.

I really enjoyed this novel, and this summary hardly does it any justice, there’s no way I could truly express how unique and incredible it is to follow Lillian on her journey through the Kingdoms and Empires. Especially because of the time travel aspect, it’s just so fun to accompany Lillian and figure out all the little bits and details about this new world. You slowly figure out how the seemingly disparate characters and concepts merge together into a beautiful ending. The last one-hundred pages were super intense, filled with so many twists and turns, and probably one of the best endings I have ever read in my life. As I said before, I could never write something that can express how incredible reading this book felt.

I really love reading books like this, where you can slowly piece together what is going on with the world the character is living in. It really just feels so rewarding when you finally reach the end and figure everything out. It’s also really fun to try to guess what’s going to happen and what is really happening to the character during their adventures. If you’ve ever read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, it’s a little bit like that, but a bit more fast paced, aimed more towards teens and children, and a lot more interesting as the entire concept of time travel just adds more depth to the story.

Something else I really loved that Moriarty did was how she embedded things like “[character] had been raised by a violent father who presented himself to the world as a kindly pet shop owner. She knew about hidden evil.”, as well as using Lillian’s grandmother as an example of a really horrible parent. This could show kids or kids that are experiencing things like Lillian or other characters in this book that have had bad parents, that it isn’t okay and it isn’t good for them. This is a pretty common theme in the book and comes up multiple times throughout the story. I think it’s pretty powerful to have something like this in a book where kids will read it and can resonate and know that they aren’t alone. Overall, this is a book that you might want to abandon in the middle, but one that you should really stick to as it rewards you with a magnificently satisfying and intense ending.