YMMV / Aru Shah and the End of Time

• Adorkable: Aru is endearingly awkward and has a love of many nerdy pop-culture movies, such as Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Aru hesitates to drink from a poisonous cauldron, fearing she might swallow the key inside. Mini casually mentions that she swallowed her mother's engagement ring once when she was three. That’s disturbing ... but becomes hilarious when Mini threatens to continue the story unless Aru drinks.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Despite what Rick Riordan said on the subject, many fans assume this, along with the other Rick Riordan Presents books, can be canonical with his Riordanverse books, either currently or by a future case of Canon Welding. The discovery of a possible reference to Irish mythology and the idea of versions of the Otherworld existing, metaphysics, and several gods living in one universe fueled the fire further.
  • When Aru and Mini first arrive in The Land of the Dead, they notice some of the recently deceased in line are crossing themselves or crawling on their bellies, decidedly not Hindu practices. They then discuss the possibility that the dead perceive the afterlife differently based on their own faiths in life, echoing a similar conversation from all the way back in The Lightning Thief.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Even though the series is published under Rick Riordan Presents and target toward middle grades, the series does not hesitate to bring up adult subjects like polygamy, uxoricide; and that there are frequent mentions of blood and scenes of demons' heads and legs getting cut off.