Yzabel / August 11, 2015

Review: The Suffering

The SufferingThe Suffering by Rin Chupeco

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

The darkness will find you.

Seventeen-year-old Tark knows what it is to be powerless. But Okiku changed that. A restless spirit who ended life as a victim and started death as an avenger, she’s groomed Tark to destroy the wicked. But when darkness pulls them deep into Aokigahara, known as Japan’s suicide forest, Okiku’s justice becomes blurred, and Tark is the one who will pay the price…

Review:

[I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Like the first novel in this series, I find this one hard to rate, as I liked quite a few things in it, while sighing at others. Probably my main issue with it was that it introduced plot lines, but didn’t really follow them. All the while, the main story *was* a grabbing read nonetheless.

This time, the whole narrative is in Tark’s voice, which probably was for the best: I liked the weird prose in the first book, but I’m still not too convinced by 1st-to-3rd person shifts in general, so I tend to prefer when a story sticks to one or the other. Bonus point here. (I’ve written this in more than one review: having one narrator in 1st person and the others in 3rd seems to be The Trend these past years… and I still don’t get why.)

Tark was also much less annoying here. Two years have gone by, he’s matured, he’s been taking things into his own hands, and while aware of his inherent darkness (since he helps Okiku hunting down paedophile killers and rapists), he also accepts it as part of how their relationship has evolved. Of course, everything isn’t perfect, they have their disagreements, and Tark’s starting to wonder where the line is to be drawn—is punishing killers enough, or does one have to start killing them before they actually start killing, as a preventive move?

The thing is, I would’ve liked to see this explored more in the story, as it was a great moral theme. It wasn’t, or not more than just for a couple of scenes. Too bad.

Instead, “The Suffering” goes in another direction. Not necessarily a bad one, just… different. It had its share of darkness and scary scenes as well, playing more on abilities Tark developed over the past two years, exorcising ghosts through dolls. Creepy dolls in America. Wedding dolls in Japan, as he and one of the miko from “The Girl From The Well” find themselves trapped in a nightmarish village where a ritual is waiting to be completed. It doesn’t help that Tark gets swallowed by this place while there are dozens of people around him, and nobody even notices. That kind of scene tends to both creep me and grab my attention (must be my old addiction for anything Silent Hill-like). And the village didn’t lack on the horror side, full of rotting houses, skeletons, old Japanese magic, tragic love stories gone wrong, and murdered girls intent on making trespassers suffer the way they did.

In that regard, this theme was an interesting echo and reflection on what Okiku herself used to be, after her death and her coming back as a vengeful spirit. In this second book, she was calmer, more composed, more attuned to Tark and to what had once made her human. On the one hand, it was good. On the other, she somewhat felt like a side character, in spite of Tark’s longing for her presence even after they had fought (also, this time the dynamics was changed, and he had to be strong as well, because the spirits they faced were of an element against which water—Okiku’s—was weakest). However, again, what could’ve been a thematic mirror wasn’t explored enough to my taste.

And that’s why I can’t bring myself to give 4 full stars her: while reading, I kept balancing between “this is great” and “I wish this had been developed more”. Add to this secondary characters that were nice to look at, but nothing more, especially Callie, who came along to Japan yet wasn’t really involved in anything except for the search & rescue party in the forest. Kendele was an addition I can’t really decide about: a good person, genuinely interested in Tark, yet also a plot device for him to realise what Okiku truly meant to him.

Overall, as a ghost story full of old rituals and beliefs, evil ghosts that all had their reasons to be like that, strange forest with a somber reputation, and traipsing along caves in search of the foul source of all that evil, “The Suffering” was a good read. Nevertheless, I think it missed the mark on a few but important elements.

3 to 3.5 stars.

Yzabel / May 18, 2015

Review: Modern Rituals

Modern Rituals (The Wayward Three, #1)Modern Rituals by J.S. Leonard

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

“A failed ritual annihilates modern life.”

Manhattan, NY: The E-Train slams into James Bixby, a strapping young artist on the rise, after a life-saving rescue attempt goes awry. Belfast, Ireland: A bullet severs Olivia Young’s spinal cord while she defends a doctor colleague–the second bullet pierces her heart.

Then they awaken–unharmed.

“Selected” and thrust into a deadly ritual, James’ and Olivia’s lives–along with the lives of five others–will decide humanity’s fate: surrender to the old Gods’ rule or live on in blissful ignorance. Follow their frantic struggle as Magnus–a secret organization of enormous reach and scientific prowess–directs the ritual to its gruesome end.

Dubbed as a Cabin in the Woods “remix,” Modern Rituals celebrates the movie’s ritual motif and compels readers with a rich universe propped upon science fiction and mythology. If you loved the fierce pace of Battle Royale and the fight to survive in Hunger Games, then Modern Rituals: The Wayward Three will quicken your heartbeat and leave your eyes red and bleary! Pick it up and strap in–once this story leaps off the page there’s no turning back.

Review:

I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This book is so difficult to rate: because I enjoyed the story, I really did (I have a fondness for tropes when they’re openly exploited as such). However, it’s also so terribly close to The Cabin in the Woods in its concept and execution, and without any acknowledgment of the movie (or, even further, of the other book that the movie supposedly plagiarised) that everything is a muddled cluster here. I’m not talking “it’s about a boy who goes to a school of wizardry, so it’s like Harry Potter” inspiration. I’m talking something even more blatant than this.

I liked the use of technology, computers and science to fulfill the needs of elder gods, assuage them and put them back to sleep. I liked how the people behind the rituals had to resort to archetypes/tropes: the Knight, the Succubus, the Virgin, the Fool, and so on. It cast the characters into specific moulds, forced them to play roles they wouldn’t have played otherwise. Besides, the blend of magic and technology is something that’s always fascinated me—perhaps because both seem to be the antithesis of each other, yet, in the words of A. C. Clarke, isn’t any sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic?

On the other hand, the tropes didn’t go far enough to my liking, in that in the end, mostly the characters did stay in those roles, and didn’t subvert them, when it would have been the perfect opportunity to do so.

I liked the twists, how the characters who were supposed to die got given a second chance, how the one who wasn’t supposed to join them actually did more than one would have thought, how the one who was supposed to die didn’t. However, there were a few but glaring holes in that, including how exactly the seven were transported into the school grounds, and the survival of… let’s say characters that shouldn’t have been able to fake their injuries or death. I mean, Olivia’s a nurse: nothing should escape her in that regard. If she pronounces someone dead, then that person is definitely dead, or at least so close to it that no recovery should be possible in such a short time.

I also wondered about the parts the characters were supposed to play, not only within the ritual itself, but in a meta way. I thought Olivia would be on par with James, as the female main protagonist, yet she was quickly overshadowed. A shame.

And… I still can’t overlook the similarities I pointed to at the beginning of my review. There are too many of them. I don’t know if I’ve missed something; I looked in the first and last pages of the novel to see if this was addressed at some point, and it just wasn’t (although one of the character clearly mentions the rituals having different settings throughout the world, “even a cabin in the woods”). I honestly don’t know what came first. Basically, I’m not even sure I should touch that with a ten-foot pole. You just… don’t do that. Is all.