Sogni Perduti
Fantasy, High Fantasy, Young Adults
Giovanni Cacioppo
Crystallum, Book # 1
Amazon KDP
October 20, 2018
ebook
422
Italian
March 14, 2020 March 17, 2020
An adventure that has already conquered over a million readings on the web.
According to Ms. Flint, they had to find a summer job. And officially this was their intention.
As if Aran and Cora could have even imagined stealing a necklace, involving poor Fez and crossing the continent. All this to attend the biggest event of the last few years, but they had decided to put their heads in place, they had said it clearly and only the right-minders could have guessed the opposite. The righteous ... and Elidana. Because she always has something to complain about.
Get ready to live a fantastic journey, between warriors, fortified cities and stones full of light.
About the book
Sogni Perduti (“Lost Dreams” no English version) is the first book of the Crystallum saga, by an Italian author who kindly gave his ebook for free for a limited period of time due to the coronavirus. In fact, given the restrictions, most of the population found themselves locked in the house with nothing to do. So Giovanni decided to make his book free to help us get through this situation and for this I thank him with all my heart. (Who knows if everything will be over when I post this review… spoiler alert, it’s not…)
But what is this book about? It’s a fantasy so we’re in a very particular imaginary world. At the beginning we are in Lud, in the republic of Lamia, where our five protagonists live, teenagers who have different situations behind them and I must say that I liked the story in which Cora and Aran know each other. Cora (a boy, male, honestly at first I thought it was a female, but immediately I saw the masculine pronoun and therefore I understood that it was a male; dear author, you will explain to me the reason for this name one day – well, Andrea is a masculine name for us Italians, but it is feminine elsewhere…), however, Cora is the protagonist and together with Aran and Fez, wants to participate to a race in the capital of the Karzhan Kingdom, Edel, and to do this they need money. To find it, they decide to use the necklace of Aran’s mother which has a sphere that was once “full” of energy. In fact in this world there are spheres that can contain energy and that are highly sought out. The boys think that by placing the necklace near a famous tree in the city, the great Jalme, they can infuse energy into the sphere which they would then exchange for money. But an accident happens and Cora falls between the roots of the tree and remains unconscious for two days. But the three do not give up their trip out of town and when Cora wakes up they leave. The three will be joined by two girls, Elidiana and Marmorel. However, Cora has a second goal, he wants to find his father who was a Karzhanian soldier and so he goes to Edel both for the race and to find some clues. All this without saying anything to his friends.
In addition to the five friends we also have another protagonist who will help them on their adventure, Camiel, a Hozman and his teacher.
What I think
I really liked the book. Honestly, it seemed a bit like The Lord of the Rings in which there is a chosen one (and I love this topic) and friends who must help him. I must say that I didn’t like The Fellowship of the Ring because it was too slow, but on the contrary I liked this book very much. I like all the journey the five kids do, I like the Seorite invention (the crystals that are precious only if loaded with energy) that reminds me a bit of The Way of Kings and I like the mystery behind the tree and Cora. My 4 stars instead of 5 are because I don’t like technology in fantasy and I admit that I read this book because it was offered to pass this quarantine, so I didn’t even read the blurb before reading it so I just didn’t know about technology, but despite that I am happy to have read it without knowing anything because if I had known about technology, that makes this book science fiction, I would never have read it. And it would have been a shame. So thanks to the author for the gift, thanks to this I found a particular world that fascinated me. Except for Karzhan, if we can bomb it on the ground in the next book I would be happy 
(it’s a joke, because the Karzhans are bed people, at least in this book).
Conclusion
I have to thank the author again, without his gift I would not have discovered this world. I will certainly continue in the series and it was a light reading, or rather not light in the true sense of the word, but with slightly different topics than usual, where the friendship between the five friends in which there is no jealousy, or insurmountable misunderstandings stands out . Everything is beautifully linked even though it is not an enigmatic book that if you lose a detail you no longer understand anything. Bravo Giovanni. Beautiful start.
And by the way, Giovanni thank you for the second book 
it was another gift and I appreciate it.
1 coffee on “Sogni Perduti (Lost Dreams)”