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Yzabel / February 16, 2015

Review: The Room

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

A quirky and unsettling tale, of dark humour and strange realities, about a bureaucrat, an open plan office and a secret room…

The Authority looks favourably upon meticulousness, efficiency and ambition. Bjorn has all of this in spades, but it’s only in the Room that he can really shine. Unfortunately, his colleagues see things differently. In fact, they don’t even see the Room at all.

The Room is a short, sharp and fiendish fable in the tradition of Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett and Charlie Kauffman. If you have ever toiled in an office, felt like the world was against you or questioned the nature of reality then this is the novel for you.

Review:

(I got a copy from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

This was a pretty strange read in many ways, but also a compelling one. I kept wondering about the mysterious room, whether it existed or not, whether Björn (the main character) was crazy or not, whether what happened in the room actually happened or not… because no matter what, everything was always just a tad bit too ambiguous to allow me to draw clear conclusions. On the one hand, it was slightly frustrating. On the other, it was interesting.

Björn is clearly a narrator of the totally unreliable variety. He’s also not very likeable, in that he thinks himself better than the others, more skilled and more knowledgeable—and at times, he’s exactly that, while at others, he appears as useless, so once more, you’re kept wondering what to believe. I found him pretty interesting, though, if considered from a sociopathic viewpoint (this kind of character tends to grab my attention: they’re trainwrecks in the making, fascinating and repulsive all at once). He had a very clear, definite image of himself that may or may not match what other people perceived, yet in his mind, the fault was very seldom his; and when he questioned himself, I would wait for the other shoe to drop. In other words, he wasn’t “likeable” as a human being, but as a study of a certain type of mindset, he certainly was.

Daily life in the Authority/the Office turned out a quirky study as well. Various social behaviours, people lined in their little cubicles, procedures, work habits, workplace events and how one can quickly fit in or, on the contrary, commit a fatal faux-pas… It wasn’t nonsense bureaucracy at its finest, but it still lent the whole book a very peculiar atmosphere, with everybody stuck with everybody else (the only character who’s seen being home is Björn, and even then it doesn’t really feel like him, much more like “the place where to be when you’re not at work”). Everybody had their flaw and good sides, but knowing what they are was to be judged according to Björn’s descriptions and to how he perceived his colleagues’ reactions. Definitely a clash of realities here, as one can empathise with the other workers, with how they felt the newcomer was strange and hostile… and at the same time, Björn’s narrative still manages to sow doubt, considering that, all in all, what he wants is to find his place in his new job, as well as a career to aim for.

Commenting on the writing style itself is a bit difficult, since it’s a translation. I found it fluid and easy to follow, with short chapters that broke the flow just like Björn’s personality seemed to be broken, too (if this makes sense). They also felt like a kind of internal filing system used by the character to compartmentalise and gain control over an environment different from what he expected. This format worked fairly well for me, considering the kind of story told here.

Yzabel / October 23, 2014

Review: The Secrets of Life and Death

The Secrets of Life and Death by Rebecca Alexander

My rating: 3

Summary:

In modern day England, Professor Felix Guichard is called in to identify occult symbols found on the corpse of a young girl. His investigation brings him in contact with a mysterious woman, Jackdaw Hammond, who guards a monumental secret–She’s Dead. Or she would be, were it not for magic which has artificially extended her life. But someone else knows her secret. Someone very old and very powerful, who won’t rest until they’ve taken the magic that keeps her alive….
In Krakow in 1585, Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan Alchemist and Occultist, and his assistant Edward Kelley have been summoned by the King of Poland to save the life of his niece, the infamous Countess Elisabeth Bathory. But they soon realize that the only thing worse than the Countess’ malady, is the magic that might be able to save her…
As Jackdaw and Felix race to uncover the truth about the person hunting her, it becomes clear that the answers they seek can only be found in the ancient diary of John Dee’s assistant, Edward Kelley. Together they must solve a mystery centuries in the making, or die trying.

Review:

(I got a copy courtesy of Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

I should have read and reviewed this book sooner, but as things go, more and more book piled up. As usual, you might say.

The Secrets of Life and Death was an entertaining story, loosely based in part on the half-history, half-legend surrounding the infamous Elisabeth Bathory. It weaves two different narratives, the first one set in modern England, the second one focused on John Dee, told in first person by his assistant Edward Kelley. People who read my reviews should know by now that I’m usually partial to time/space shifts; I enjoyed those here, for they provided enough information while gradually bringing everything together, even though I’d have a few qualms regarding the last installments of Dee & Kelley’s adventure (in the end, I thought they tended to drag a little).

I also quite liked the modern part, two of its characters being “revenants” of sorts: people who should’ve died, but whose death could be foretold. As such, a witch managed to get to them just in time to place them within protective sigils, making them dependent on that magic to keep “surviving”, yet still providing them with what they call “borrowed time.” It’s probably not the most original concept ever, but it’s definitely not a rehashed take on “people coming back from the dead” either. Also, the magic described throughout the novel was intriguing and interesting: the revenants are weak in more than one way, unable to go far from their sigils, and the reasons to create them are both humane and rather selfish. That’s a greay enough area to my liking.

Two things I found fault with, though. The first was the romance, which felt stilted and forced. The attraction between Jack and Felix came too fast (which is why I won’t consider this a major spoiler), and developed in awkward ways. Understandable? Perhaps. However, in my typical way of perceiving things (in other word, “guys, there are more pressing matters of life and death to tackle here”), it didn’t register as absolutely necessary to the story. As for the second point, it’s more minor: I’d just would’ve liked more explanations about how Saraquel managed to speak to Edward (and here I’m not saying more, because that would be a spoiler).

3.5 stars nonetheless, and a story I’d easily recommend: not the best ever, but still worth reading to spend a good afternoon/evening.

Yzabel / July 29, 2014

Review: Horrorstör

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Columbus, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring wardrobes, shattered Brooka glassware, and vandalized Liripip sofa beds clearly, someone or something is up to no good.

To unravel the mystery, five young employees volunteer for a long dusk-till-dawn shift—and they encounter horrors that defy imagination. Along the way, author Grady Hendrix infuses sly social commentary on the nature of work in the new twenty-firstcentury economy.

A traditional haunted house story in a contemporary setting (and full of current fears), Horrorstör comes conveniently packaged in the form of a retail catalog, complete with illustrations of ready-to-assemble furniture and other, more sinister accessories. We promise you’ve never seen anything quite like it!

Review:

(I got an ARC through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

3.5 stars. An interesting enough blend, in my opinion, of an IKEA/retail parody coupled with horror/ghost stories elements, though after a while, I wished said blend had been more balanced (hence my rating: I would have liked this book more if it had been the case, I think).

It plays on several tropes typical of the genre (people isolated in a haunted place, with dangerous things happening as soon as they’re separated, etc.), while also offering tongue-in-cheek criticism of large retail stores practices. One thing I really liked, both as a reader and as a graphic-designer, was that the book itself reads like an IKEA catalogue, complete with square format, furniture illustrations, pseudo-Swedish names. Those schemas also gradually shift from innocent-looking retail items to contraptions and devices that appear in the real horror part, and the change was subtle enough to make me at unease without realising, for a few seconds, what was actually wrong.

The characters weren’t too likeable in the beginning, in a cardboard-cut way, but some of them I started to appreciate after a while, and they displayed growth as well: nobody could get out unchanged from such an experience, after all, and the changes seemed to me both traumatising as well as positive.

Oddly enough, or maybe not, the serious horror part didn’t really cut it for me. It was definitely creepy, with vivid descriptions, and definitely fit what I’d expected from a horror story. In fact, I’m of a mind to dub it “Silent Hill meets IKEA”, in that the places the characters are trapped in aren’t merely frightening: they also toy with their psyches. However, I realised I missed the funnier tone from earlier chapters. The book cover made me expect more satire, and so, in the end, I felt a little disappointed in that regard.

Nevertheless, I’d recommend this story. It was entertaining, had its really scary parts, and its ending provides a conclusion to the night’s events while still leaving room for enough speculation—not a cliffhanger, but reader’s imagination, which is something I always appreciate.

Yzabel / July 24, 2014

Review: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars : Verily, A New Hope

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Inspired by one of the greatest creative minds in the English language—and William Shakespeare—here is an officially licensed retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. The saga of a wise (Jedi) knight and an evil (Sith) lord, of a beautiful princess held captive and a young hero coming of age, Star Wars abounds with all the valor and villainy of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. ’Tis a tale told by fretful droids, full of faithful Wookiees and fearsome Stormtroopers, signifying…pretty much everything.

Reimagined in glorious iambic pentameter—and complete with twenty gorgeous Elizabethan illustrations—William Shakespeare’s Star Wars will astound and edify Rebels and Imperials alike. Zounds! This is the book you’re looking for.

Review:

(I’ve had my sights on this book for quite a while. When I saw it up on Edelweiss, I promptly requested a digital copy, and was pretty glad I was approved quickly. All this in exchange for an honest review, of course.)

I must confess I’m a long-time Shakespeare addict. I sure don’t find all his works wonderful, I have my favourites and my not-so-favourites, and sometimes I take it more in jest than in earnest, but we’re nevertheless speaking here of someone who recognises her iambic pentameters when she sees them, and who can still quote most of Edmund’s speeches even five years after studying King Lear. I am, simply put, totally biased, and not ashamed of it the least bit.

I’m also an old Star Wars nerd. Seriously. I stopped counting a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) how many times I watched the original triolgy—both the first version and the remastered one. Also, know that I drive to the tune of Darth Vader’s voice giving me directions whenever I turn my GPS on.

Simply put, as I was reading this play, I kept thinking: “My, actually staging it would be great, and I’d probably be ready to do it, even though I have no experience whatsoever in theatrics”.

I also couldn’t help but find traces of Joseph Campbell in there, which the afterword confirmed, and which isn’t surprising at all. Shakespeare’s plays rest on a lot of classical archetypes, and George Lucas’s do as well, considering his own contacts with Campbell’s works. (Have I ever said I deeply admire the latter?)

This book contains a lot of things I loved:
* Hints at scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, including Luke delivering a “poor Yorick” soliloquy while contemplating the helmet of the Stormtrooper whose armour he stole.
* Proper use of “wherefore” (honestly, you have no idea how good it is to find an author who doesn’t mistake it for “where”).
* Hilarious asides from R2D2, whose bleeping and various other noises are only a cover for real thoughts. Pretty much like the typical Fool, in fact.
* Tongue-in-cheek quips at the movies:

HAN: Aye, true, I’ll warrant thou hast wish’d this day.
[They shoot, Greedo dies.
[To innkeeper:] Pray, goodly Sir, forgive me for the mess.
[Aside:] And whether I shot first, I’ll ne’er confess!

* Leaning on, or even breaking the fourth wall, and addressing the audience, much like in the original plays.
* Strong attempts at respecting the movie’s lines:

VADER I find thy lack of faith disturbing

LEIA Thou truly art in jest. Art thou not small
Of stature, if thou art a stormtrooper?

* Actual stage directions—probably one of the reasons why I felt this could very well be staged.
* Iambic pentameters. I checked. I counted. They’re not so easy to pull.
* Illustrations in the shape of etchings featuring Star Wars characters with their normal looks combined to some late Elizabethan fashion elements.

I was less at ease with the fifth act, though, and I think it was mainly because the Star Wars scene is a space battle, yet trying to conform to stage directions led to a lot of talking and describing actions. The attempt didn’t work so well as it did in other parts of the book. I also questioned how the book may be perceived if read by someone who doesn’t appreciate both SW and Shakespeare: I’m not convinced it would make a good introduction to either of those. One definitely needs to be acquainted with both to start appreciating it.

Overall: a few things I didn’t like, but that never hampered my enjoyment of the book. I found it cleverly executed, as well as both a fun read and one that made me try and match scenes/quotes from the movies with their potential parallels in Shakespeare’s plays. 4.5 stars.

Yzabel / July 23, 2014

Review: Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa by Kristen Lippert-Martin

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

The Bourne Identity meets Divergent in this action-packed debut thriller with a Katniss-esque heroine fighting to regain her memories and stay alive, set against a dystopian hospital background.

Sarah starts a crazy battle for her life within the walls of her hospital-turned-prison when a procedure to eliminate her memory goes awry and she starts to remember snatches of her past. Was she an urban terrorist or vigilante? Has the procedure been her salvation or her destruction?

The answers lie trapped within her mind. To access them, she’ll need the help of the teen computer hacker who’s trying to bring the hospital down for his own reasons, and a pill that’s blocked by an army of mercenary soldiers poised to eliminate her for good. If only she knew why . . .

Review:

(I got a copy through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

Good idea and interesting beginning, but the second third kind of dragged in my opinion, and the ending was, well, wrapped up in a trope that made me really roll my eyes.

I liked the premise of PTSD victims being given a second chance (whether “true” victims or perpetrators) by having their memory removed—or at least, all the memories pertaining the trauma and/or crime. And in the beginning, nothing is certain as far as Sarah, the narrator, is concerned: was she so psychologically damaged and abused that she couldn’t function even with normal treatments? Or was she some hardboiled criminal, considering how despised she was by some of the hospital’s personnel? I thought the ambiguity was well-played here, because both reactions were present: nice doctors and nurses making small talk with her, while others would scowl and prevent her from having contact with other patients. Her skills, too, were ambiguous: they could be those of a burglar just as well as those of an acrobat, after all.

However, I found the pacing after that rather problematic, being a blend of action scenes interspersed with slow moments in which info was dumped and nothing really interesting happened. The mandatory YA romance subplot felt boring, too, and as is too often the case didn’t bring anything to the story. On the one hand, I get that it was part of Sarah’s development and return to her true self, something to make her feel like fighting and not give upt, but… on the other hand, does a person in such a situation really need some love interest to do that? Why did it have to be romance? One that sprang in a couple of days or so, no more. I don’t dislike romance plots; however, most of the time, they’re not really useful, and are of the marketing ploy kind, “because romance sells”, instead of being fully part of the story. Here, that was exactly my impression. Budding love? Sure. Full-blown romance with “I love you” and feelings that the person is/was The One, in less than 72 hours? Doesn’t work for me. In this type of setting, survival is key, and professing love just like that was kind of cheesy anyway.

Some of the plot points were fairly predictable, along with conveniently placed flashbacks and special snowflake syndrome (after a while). Add to this a few mind-boggling moments, such as soldiers not even taking someone’s pulse to see if that person’s indeed dead (huh?). Also, I didn’t like the ending—more specifically, the part where the Big Bad nicely explains what the plan was all about. I want explanations, of course, only I prefer them to be shown to me, not unveiled in a gloating villain speech. It’s been done too often for it to work, not to mention that the villain’s motives were… too basic.

On the bright side, somehow I still managed to like Sarah and Thomas. They had a “no bullshit” streak, in that they planned to get things done and acted on those plans, and didn’t mope around while being useless. I’m tired of heroines who don’t get anything done themselves, and Sarah was all but that. Which is why I’m leaning towards 1.5/2 stars here.

Yzabel / July 20, 2014

Review: The Girl From The Well

The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret – one that would just kill to get out.

The Girl from the Well is A YA Horror novel pitched as “Dexter” meets “The Grudge”, based on a well-loved Japanese ghost story.

Review:

(I got an ARC of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

Not so much “terribly scary” for me in the end, in that I don’t scare easily, yet fascinating nonetheless for its depiction of ghosts, the appearance they have after death, and the imagery it conjured. I could fairly easily picture Okiku, the murderers she targeted and got revenge on in place of the dead children, said children literally latched onto those men’s necks and linked to their limbs by spirituals cords… And the woman in black… well, all right, that one I’d definitely attempt to draw someday, although I’m not sure I could do her justice. I think the way the story was told, too, contributed to this: somewhat cold and detached, and special, because it’s a strange mix of omniscient and first person point of view (the story’s told by Okiku herself, who’s able to observe other characters and their reactions, and sense their thoughts and feelings). In any other story, it probably wouldn’t have worked for me; here, it did, because it seemed to fit with the ghost’s paradigm. I don’t know if other readers in general would like it, but as far as I’m concerned, it partook the fascination I had for this novel, through descriptions that were just the right length and just suggestive enough (all the more for the intended YA audience), without falling into the realm of “too much”.

The Girl From The Well is loosely based on a well-known Japanese legend, that of a servant girl who worked for a lord, and was tasked with keeping ten precious plates; she was tricked into believing she had lost one of them, and was put to death for her “carelessness”. As a result, she became a vengeful spirit who drove her former lord to death—and the number 9 sends her spirit into a frenzy. This was nicely reflected in the book, in that Okiku tends to count whatever she sees (people, items…), and the accursed number indeed makes her react violently. Forever detached from both human world and and elusive afterlife, she can only watch, in between enacting revenge throughout the world on people who’ve killed children, but were never punished for their bad deeds. The Smiling Man, especially, was of quite a scary persuasion—I find smiles way more frightening than other expressions whenever such characters are concerned.

However, this isn’t exactly Okiku’s story. Hers was already written, already told, and this is more a “what would happen some three hundred years later, how would such a vengeful spirit evolve with time.” Partly to her own surprise, she finds herself drawn to Tarquin, a boy with strange tattoos, and whose fate is doomed to be a dark one if what plagues him isn’t destroyed in time. (Note: there’s no romance involved—a very welcome element in my opinion. It would just’ve been weird and misplaced in such a story.) Odd things happen around Tark, his own mother has been locked in an institution and has tried to kill him several times, and he just doesn’t understand much to what’s happening. But other people slowly start to notice the presence that haunts him, those people being mostly Okiku and his cousin Callie, and it’s up to them to try and understand what his problem his, and how to solve it, which involves going back to his roots.

On the downside, I wasn’t too convinced by the characters in general, in that they seemed more driven by the plot than people with their own lives. Okiku’s involvement was also somewhat problematic, since she was mostly a watcher and didn’t act as much as I expected her to. I think I would’ve liked her nature as a vengeful spirit to show through more than it did; for instance, one of the vengeance scenes made me feel like it had been put there as some kind of reminder, and not really as part of the plot. There was also one huge blunder that could’ve been easily avoided if only one of the characters had spoken out loud about a specific event, yet didn’t for… no reason? I don’t mind characters making honest mistakes, but not when the latter are the product of unexplained reasoning.

Overall, I had a hard time putting this book down, and remained fascinated, though with hindsight, those aspects I mentioned prevented me from rating it higher. (3.5 stars)

Yzabel / June 2, 2014

Review: The Girl With All The Gifts

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

My rating: [rating=5]

Summary:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Review:

(I got a copy through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

4.5 stars—to be honest, 3rd person present narration is something I don’t exactly like, and at times (mostly when I picked up the book again after something or other made me stop reading) it made it difficult to get back into it. However, I suspect in this case, it’s really a matter of personal preference, and every time the story pulled me back in in seconds, anyway.

There’s something both deeply disturbing and fascinating to this novel. At first sight, it looked like a “traditional” enough post-apocalyptic story, with humans surviving in locked-down places while looking for a way to go back to how the world used to be, or at least, find a way to keep strong and going. But as I went into the story, more and more little differences appeared. Maybe not that many, maybe not enough to warrant a giant “this is so different” label… yet still taking me gradually further from what I expected.

There’s a survival trek through zombie-infested territory. There’s a scientist doing research, hoping to find a vaccine. There’s the hard-boiled soldier and the rookie, protecting the group. There’s a civilian who wants to believe in something better. There’s the kid, Melanie, strange Melanie, so smart yet also so innocent, because she’s never seen the world outside of the classroom. This somewhat dysfunctional group is complemented by both strength and dysfunctionality within the characters themselves—though it’s hard to describe without walking into, well, spoiler-infested territory.

Caldwell is partly doing her research out of spite, the 25th scientist on a list of 24 “chosen ones” who were supposed to work to eradicate the plague; even though she’s dying, she keeps going on, wanting to understand, wanting her life to have a meaning, wanting to succeed where the others failed, and somehow “playing god” regarding her “specimens”. Justineau, who acts fiercely protective towards the kids in general, and Melanie more specifically, has a selfish reason of her own to do so, maybe to try and find absolution. Born in a shitty world, Kieran had a shitty childhood which he wanted to escape, yet never really managed to. Parks comes out as quite an asshole, but he’s seen his share of horrors, and his distrust of Melanie is understandable. As for Melanie herself, her innocence combines with an acute awareness of her own nature, and the world and people who’ve been shaping her don’t realise until it’s too late what her existence really means.

There are so many things I’d like to say about this novel; doing so, though, is likely to make me spoil another reader’s pleasure.

I liked the idea behind the “zombie plague”: not a virus, not a pathogen, but a fungus—it’s the first time I see this angle played in a story, at least. The science describing its behaviour seemed believable to me (I’m not a scientist, however, so I could be mistaken). Being a fungus, another aspect plays a part, on top of blood and bites: spores, and that was ended up being the most frightening, because can the surviving humans really escape such tiny particles? Avoiding zombie encounters, wearing armour, establishing secured aread: comparatively, this is easy. But spores? The whole concept also led to eerie descriptions that left me with a feeling of unease mixed with fascination: a silent city, its streets littered with corpses long decayed, out of which strange fungi sprouted, growing, growing, and who knew when they’d reach maturity, and start spreading those dreadly spores?…

The ending fascinated me as well, because of all it implied, all the unspoken outcomes it could lead to, all its ambiguity and imperfection. The hope it carries is a very twisted one, perhaps even a false one. (What follows is major spoiler material, so don’t click if you don’t want to know.)

This ending? Irony to the power of ten. Melanie has basically become Caldwell, drawing from the scientist’s example, shaping the world according to her own belief of what will be the best solution, engaging a procedure with no turning point, and using the hands of a dying man to do so. She has trapped Helen in a role she, herself, thought as a perfect existence: the kind teacher guiding the kids, the teacher whose lessons were always the best part of the week… but is this what Helen wanted and liked? Not so much. The specimen has become the dispassionate scientist, while the protector has become the prisoner. The base is gone. The men are gone. The children are a new form of life, but one that doesn’t lend itself to much hindsight yet, and even with guidance and teaching, who can tell whether they’ll succeeded in making a new world?

So, I loved this book. So much that I was willing to forgive its narration (something that might have broken another story for me). Unless zombie stories gross you out, I’d definitely recommend it.

Yzabel / April 29, 2014

Review: The Oversight

The Oversight by Charlie Fletcher

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

“The end always happens faster than you think.”

Once there were hundreds of members of the Oversight, the brave souls who guard the borders between the mundane and the magic. Now there are only five.

When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight’s London headquarters, she could answer their hopes for new recruit, or she could be the instrument of their downfall.

Review:

[I got an ARC of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review. Physical copy liable to change upon actual publishing.]

At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of this novel, not knowing if I’d like it or if it was starting too slowly to my liking. However, I soon found myself engrossed in the story—I only read it in more than just a couple of days because I was busy, otherwise I’d probably have gone through it much more quickly.

First, though, one thing must be made clear: this is book 1 in a trilogy, and while it doesn’t end on a strong cliffhanger, readers should be aware that not every single plot line gets resolved in it. The world building is quite complex, and only some of its aspects are revealed in this first installment. When one threat gets neutralised, another one appears; when one character is saved, another one gets into a predicament. All those things are meant to tie into the next book(s). If a reader’s all right with that, then there should be no problem.

I found the 19th century London depicted here to my taste: dark alleys and street urchins; gentlemen dealing with creatures they don’t fully understand; a travelling circus with a battle of “wizards”; the mysterious Oversight, who may be seen as “the nice ones”, but whose members can be just as ruthless as their enemies, if not more. This world is painted in more shades of grey than I could count; the purest-looking ones aren’t so innocent, and the darkest may not be so evil as they seem (the Sluagh’s vindictive attitude, for instance, partly stems from how they feel cheated: they were allowed to keep the forests/wild lands if they stayed out of the cities… but human cities are encroaching more and more upon the wilderness, making the deal somewhat obsolete).

The writing was descriptive and captivating enough, without making me feel that it was delaying too much the setting of the various plots. There was something magic-like to it that made me come back on a regular basis.

What makes this novel’s strength might be its downfall for some readers, though, in that it’s very much plot-driven. The author wove his story in a way that kept me guessing as to who was truly evil and who wasn’t, who was the enemy and who might actually be even more dangerous; on the other hand, while this was very well-done in my opinion, one might also find the characters not so well-developed in comparison. An example would be the relationship between Sara and Jack[Sara and Jack (hide spoiler)]: I could feel it, sense it, but it was perhaps too subtle, so in the end her decision to go through the mirrors[through the mirrors (hide spoiler)] seemed somewhat rushed. The story and the promises it holds for next volume prevented me from resenting this too much, but it could still be a problem, depending on one’s expectations.

Overall, a very intriguing novel which really caught my attention and makes me want to read the next one right now, but with the hopes that we’ll get to know the characters better.

Yzabel / March 11, 2014

Review: Dear Killer

Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

My rating:[usr 2]

Summary:

Rule One—Nothing is right, nothing is wrong.
Rule Two—Be careful.
Rule Three—Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Your arms are the weakest.
Rule Four—Hit to kill. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible.
Rule Five—The letters are the law.

Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game; choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life—the only way of life she has ever known.

But when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there.

Katherine Ewell’s Dear Killer is a sinister psychological thriller that explores the thin line between good and evil, and the messiness of that inevitable moment when life contradicts everything you believe

Review:

(I got an ARC of this book courtesy of Edelweiss. The book being published by now, a few things may have changed, compared to the version I read.)

I can’t say I hated this novel, but it didn’t leave me with a strong impression either. I expected more darkness from Kit, more moral ambiguity; instead, I found a lot of little things that constantly challenged my suspension of disbelief.

I think the main issue for me was a pitfall a lot of stories about serial killers have to avoid: how to make the killer really dangerous, while also giving him/her flaws that would allow other people to catch him/her? Because, obviously, if the murderer’s so perfect nobody can ever uncover his/her true identity, there’s no challenge, no conflict, in terms of both plot and character development. This is where the story failed for me: Kit is “the Perfect Killer”, but the way she acts in the novel, it’s a wonder she wasn’t caught before. She befriends a Scotland Yard detective and almost immediately gives out information the police’s not supposed to know. She kills in her own school, and sets it up to make herself the only witness. She inserts herself into the investigation, goes back to the crime scenes, even lets one victim go free. She takes some care not to leave prints by using gloves all the time and not resorting to weapons that could be found… but she’s not too savvy when it comes to the more advanced forensic techniques.

Unbelievable, therefore, was the police’s incompetence. Everybody in London seems to know where the “Dear Killer”‘s mailbox is, but the police never found any lead. Kit’s signature are letters from the very people who asked her to kill, containing extremely valuable information about them and the victims; 50 murders later, how come none of those has ever led to a clue, how come the police hasn’t managed to get a confession allowing them to find the mailbox, if only by striking a bargain with a guilt-ridden “customer”? Also, Alex shouldn’t ever have allowed Kit on a crime scene, nor talked about the investigation. This works in Dexter because he’s already a member of the police force—but even Dexter’s presence on some scenes is questioned by his colleagues, when there aren’t any blood splatters to check, so if Dex can’t be there without rising suspicion, how can Kit, the teenager, whose only link with the police is the detective her mother once brought home for dinner?

Then, there’s the ambiguity of Kit’s position regarding her jobs. Is she really a serial killer, or a hired killer? Does she really off people because of some urges, or is she merely doing what her mother taught her, is she what she was brought up to be? Is her moral nihilism truly that, and does she even know where she stands? My qualms with those questions is that they were never really examined, and Kit’s actions and thoughts felt too random to really play a part in what could’ve been serious introspection. Once she says there’s no right nor wrong, and then she seems to believe she kills for justice, but the killing jobs she chooses to carry can’t be justified this way (one guy writes that he wants her to kill his fiancée, because he was involved in a hit-and-run, and now she wants him to confess to the police… so Kit kills the woman, no questions asked, when clearly “justice” would’ve been to get rid of the guy who had already taken a life). I would’ve find it more believable if she had questioned her choices on that level; she starts doing it with the one victim she lets go, but considering who her last victim is at the end, it might as well never have happened.

Kit’s relationship with her mother was probably what kept me reading: extremely unhealthy, riddled with her mom’s own madness. Mrs. Ward: a women who had married a certain man only so that she could be left alone, who had transferred her urges to kill onto her daughter, and basically shaped a kid into a monster. Maybe the idea of a teenage killer was a bit stretched, but it didn’t matter, because there was a reason behind it, and it was something I could go with (children find their first examples in their parents: what if the parents themselves are dysfunctional to the extreme?) Like a trainwreck, it was something I couldn’t help but watch, even though it was deeply unsettling, and just like with Kit’s moments of doubts about her killings, there was something interesting underneath it all, some deep questions to be asked; however, it wasn’t carried far enough in my opinion to shine through. In general, I found Kit’s thoughts and observations remained too much on the surface level, and what could’ve been character growth (acceptance, finding herself through her killings, different moral choices, whatever) only started happening, yet never went there.