young adult Archives - Page 10 of 19

Yzabel / February 1, 2015

Review: A Myth to the Night

A Myth to the Night: Parts I-V by Cora Choi

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Once home to the illustrious Order of the Crane — guardians of the world’s myths and legends — Stauros Island, now in the hands of the Order of the Shrike, is an elite university whose students are guaranteed positions of power upon graduating.

However, a dark curse hangs over the island: students are disappearing. The school officials declare it the work of a demon, and blame Hugh Fogg — a young monk of the Order of the Crane who died 400 years earlier.

Could the spirit of a young man who died in 1615 come back to haunt an island and terrorize its students? If so, for what purpose? A Myth to the Night is Hugh’s story and his struggle to see his mission complete.

Review:

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

While this novel had its flaws, I nevertheless enjoyed it for some of the ideas it brought forth and for its half-dystopian, half-anachronistic atmosphere. The latter might be a deterrent to some, as it’s quite peculiar, but overall I liked it.

The story itself partly reads as a myth, with its cast of characters born from legends. After all the books about them were destroyed, they came to exist as “phantoms” on Stauros Island, striving to tell people at night about who they had been and what symbols and values they were meant to embody. The descriptions given of these people/heroes/creatures, as well as of their surroundings on the island, lent the novel quite a magical feeling.

I also liked the idea of an evil sect controlling the world through fear and systematic destruction of old tales and knowledge, so that people wouldn’t have anything to turn to, and would more easily allow themselves to be ruled. The sect’s role was a bit far-fetched and one-dimensional, in a “big villain” way, but on the other hand, it also had echoes of secret societies born from wealthy frats, or of a New World Order of some kind—people educated at Stauros are groomed to be the rich and powerful of this world, complete with signets revealing their belonging to the Order of the Shrike. This definitely wasn’t uninteresting.

On the downside, some parts were somewhat muddled and slow, and could lead to questioning the world-building if one thinks about it too much. Some aspects were clearly simplistic and/or too manichean or predictable. If you’re looking for solid world-building, these flaws will quickly become manifest. If you choose to read A Myth to the Night as a kind of myth itself, then it’s less of a problem.

Yzabel / January 21, 2015

Review: Wish You Weren’t

Wish You Weren’t by Sherrie Petersen

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Marten doesn’t believe in the power of wishes. None of his have ever come true. His parents ignore him, his little brother is a pain and his family is talking about moving to Texas. Not cool. So when he makes an impulsive wish during a meteor shower, he doesn’t expect it to make any difference.

Until his annoying brother disappears.

With the present uncertain and his brother’s future in limbo, Marten finds himself stuck in his past. And if he runs out of time, even wishes might not be enough to save the ones he loves.

Review:

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

A quick and entertaining read, that could appeal to a lot of middle-graders, especially the first-borns who (like me *wink* *wink*) found themselves “trapped” at 11-12 with a younger sibling they had to be responsible for, and burdened with the feeling that life was so unfair. Seriously, even 20-odd years later, I could still relate, remembering how that was the way I felt towards my own sister at the time. A book that can appeal to older readers through the chasm of time, well, isn’t that something?

The story was sometimes pretty bizarre, and I suppose I would’ve liked some parts to be better explained (let’s just say Tör isn’t the most straightforward character when it comes to answering questions). It may or may not be a problem, in that having such answers doesn’t really matter in the end, but not having them made things a little confusing, so it’s a tie here. For instance, I would’ve liked to see more of the watches, how exactly they worked, etc: not essential to the story and the message it conveys… but still something that would titillate my curiosity. The shooting stars part felt confusing somewhat confusing, and a couple of points (such as, people able to see the characters when they weren’t supposed to) were maybe too easily chalked out to “things aren’t working as intended”, without anything to support the why and how behind it.

The characterss reactions weren’t always the most clever, to be honest. However, being 12 and stranded and without any advice to go by, I guess you can’t help but making mistakes. I wouldn’t have forgiven this is an older character; I could forgive Marten, though, all the more because he also realised soon enough how exactly he felt about his brother, whose “fault” things were, and because he grew up in the process, becoming more understanding of the people around him.

This book is also interesting for its bits of astronomy: not too many, nothing impossible to understand for a younger reader, and at the same time this is something that could make one look further (which is also why the book provides links at the end, towards various websites about the Hubble telescope and other astronomy-related themes).

In short: a pretty sweet novel, with a few holes, but nonetheless enjoyable for younger readers.

Yzabel / January 20, 2015

Review: The Silence of Six

The Silence of Six by E.C. Myers

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

“What is the silence of six, and what are you going to do about it?”

These are the last words uttered by 17-year-old Max Stein’s best friend, Evan: Just moments after hacking into the live-streaming Presidential debate at their high school, he kills himself.

Haunted by the image of Evan’s death, Max’s entire world turns upside down as he suddenly finds himself the target of a corporate-government witch-hunt. Fearing for his life and fighting to prove his own innocence, Max goes on the run with no one to trust and too many unanswered questions.

Max must dust off his own hacking skills and maneuver the dangerous labyrinth of underground hacktivist networks, ever-shifting alliances, and virtual identities — all while hoping to find the truth behind the “Silence of Six” before it’s too late.

Review:

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

3.5 stars, because the book wasn’t without faults. In fact, I’d probably give it 4 stars in other circumstances—that is, if I didn’t know a lot to the online world, computers in general, and hackers. Some parts I found to be too “didactic”, which would be good for a reader with a less technological background, yet tended to become annoying after a while (I really don’t need to be taught what a DDoS attack is). However, this is a “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of fault, and I don’t doubt it’s precisely what would help another person enjoy the story more.

The events in the last third of the book also seemed to move just a tad bit too fast, making things somewhat confusing. I guess I would have liked to see more hide and seek there? Or a different approach? It’s actually hard to tell. I just know that I went “huh?” in a couple of places.

I liked the main characters, the ways they went through to meeting, and how they generally thought of clever little tricks to avoid being noticed (how to trick facial recognition software, etc.). Perhaps their relationship was a little forced, but it didn’t matter that much within the flow of the story.

The reflections the book leads to when it comes to social media and their impact on our lives, were interesting as well. So many people use their real names on such media, handing out very specific information, without realising that it could be exploited. Reminding this to younger readers (middle-schoolers, the “YA crowd”…) is certainly not a bad idea at all. Anyway, the use of social media, through the giant “Panjea”, was both a reminder and a wink, and I appreciate that kind of things.

Overall, it was a light, fast-paced read that could be quite enjoyable for a lot of readers. Had I been “younger” (less experienced, with less computer/online knowledge than I have now), I’d probably have given it 4 stars.

Yzabel / November 17, 2014

Review: Stormdancer

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary

One girl and a griffin against an empire.

Griffins are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father Masaru are sent to capture one for the Shõgun, they fear that their lives are over – everyone knows what happens to those who fail the Lord of the Shima Isles. But the mission proves less impossible and more deadly than anyone expects. Soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in her country’s last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. Although she can hear his thoughts, and saved his life, all she knows for certain is he’d rather see her dead than help her. Yet trapped together in the forest, Yukiko and the beast soon discover a bond that neither of them expected.

Meanwhile, the country around them verges on collapse. A toxic fuel is choking the land, the machine-powered Lotus Guild is publicly burning those they deem Impure, and the Shõgun cares for nothing but his own dominion. Authority has always made Yukiko, but her world changes when she meets Kin, a young man with secrets, and the rebel Kagé cabal. She learns the horrifying extent of the Shõgun’s crimes, both against her country and her family.

Returning to the city, Yukiko is determined to make the Shõgun pay – but what can one girl and a flightless griffin do against the might of an empire?

Review:

More like 2.5 stars. Very, very mixed feelings here. I sort of enjoyed it, but…

I liked the second part better, in part because I’m not too fond of treks in the wilderness/mountains, and also because of the more complex political layers I could sense in it. Also, Yukiko had to grow up, from the sulking girl of the beginning to one who finally understood that things weren’t always what they seemed—and grow up she did.

More problematic was the balance when it came to the Japanese influence: I constantly felt it was either too much or too little. The first 100 pages or so contaid a lot of exposition/descriptions, clearly intended for people who don’t know that culture; however, as soon as you know just a little, it’s already too much. It’s worth for the language as well. My knowledge of Japanese is very limited (2 hours/week for, what, two semesters?), but it was enough for me to notice all the glaring mistakes and weird approach. For instance, “shima” means “island” (among other things—you can’t tell without the kanji), so “the Isles of Shima” is, uh, “the Isles of Island”, which is definitely weird. Another example: when characters, who’re supposed to speak “Japanese” (and we’re made to feel like they do, it’s too close in influence to pull the “it’s only inspired by it” card), end up translating expressions. There’s no way Buruu, linked to Yukiko’s mind, would need her to translate an expression like “arashi no ko”. So, for me, it was really troubling, and I’m positive such words could have been translated for the readers without having to resort to such devices.

My other problem with the novel came from some of the secondary characters, who weren’t given enough spotlight, or were given too much for plot-device reasons. First, Aisha, who looked so promising, looked like she could’ve done and been so much more, and then… nothing. Second, Hiro, whose part was important, but whose influence in the firs two thirds of the novel sprung just out of nowhere. I would wonder: “Why is Yukiko thinking of that guy with green eyes? She only talked to him for five seconds at the beginning of the book.” It was like insta-love fuelled by nothing.

On the other hand, there’s ground for a lot of interesting things in terms of world-building, and in how the blood lotus flower and the environmental problems play a part in Shima’s setting. I may pick the second book at some point after all, to see what becomes of this world.

Yzabel / November 15, 2014

Review: Krabat

Krabat by Otfried Preußler

My rating: 3

Summary:

Krabat, a fourteen-year-old Wendish beggar boy, is summoned in a dream to a mysterious mill. When he awakens, an irresistible force makes him seek out a mill near the village of Schwarzkollm where he becomes apprenticed to the master. He soon discovers that the mill is actually a school for black magic and that he and the mill’s journeymen are virtual prisoners. During the week they do the normal work of the mill, but on Friday nights, the master initiates them into the strange rituals of the Art of Arts. The very first Friday, the master turns Krabat into a raven, a trick the boy quickly learns to do himself.

Krabat completes his apprenticeship, becomes a journeyman and the master’s star pupil in necromancy. But the power his new skills endow him with does not compensate for his loss of freedom. And the more he learns of the mill’s dark secrets, the more determined he becomes to escape from the master’s bondage.

The Satanic Mill is set against the colorful background of seventeenth-century Germany. The story of Krabat’s captive apprenticeship and ultimate victory over the master is an unusual, tension-packed thriller that readers of all ages will find difficult to put down until the last page is turned.

Called a masterpiece by reviewers in Germany, The Satanic Mill was awarded the 1972 German Children’s Book Prize.

Review:

(I got a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I liked this story well enough: it has the definite markings of a fairy tale, somehow reminding me of old legends from my home area. (I’m not German, but we do have our own tales dealing with similar themes, such as clever journeymen who manage to outsmart supernatural beings, etc.)

There was magic in the atmosphere here—no pun intended: though sorcery was obviously a strong theme, indeed, events and descriptions themselves, even of daily activities, always seemed to have been touched by something out of the ordinary. We get to discover this at the same time Krabat does, wondering more and more about his surroundings and why things are the way they are.

The writing style was fairly simple, easy to grasp and prompting imagery in an efficient way. Probably suffering from a “lost in translation” syndrome, though, as it sometimes felt a bit dry. (I tend to avoid judging harshly in such cases, since I wouldn’t be able to compare with the original version.)

The downside (of sorts) is that, as in most fairytales, the characters aren’t too developed, and used more to carry the story on their shoulders than as people with their own lives. For instance, we never get to know the singer’s name[the singer’s name (hide spoiler)], which makes her appear as a symbol more than as a real person. The way the relationship develops is clearly a device, and not believable in terms of “falling in love the natural way”. Also, Krabat and the other guys don’t question the Master’s motives that much, even though they live in fear during a certain period of the year.

It probably works better as a story for younger readers: frightening in parts, but not gory, with darker aspects but “appropriate” morals. However, at the same time, it left me longing for more. The ending was rushed, in my opinion,, and I would have wanted to learn what happened to everyone else afterwards.

Yzabel / November 12, 2014

Review: The Body Electric

The Body Electric by Beth Revis

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

The future world is at peace.

Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift–the ability to enter people’s dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother–to help others relive their happy memories.

But not all is at it seems.

Ella starts seeing impossible things–images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience–and influence–the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love–even though Ella’s never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…

Someone’s altered her memory.

Ella’s gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn’t even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella’s head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.

So who can she trust?

Review:

(I got a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I had planned on reading Across the Universe ages ago, yet never got to it. Instead, I got to this one—which, from what I understand, very loosely alludes to the former. I can confirm, in any case, that not having read Beth Revis’s trilogy won’t be a problem here: the present novel is a standalone, and previous knowledge isn’t mandatory to follow its plot. Although I guess that, like me, you’ll miss a few Easter Eggs.

The story follows Ella, a girl from Malta, who struggles daily to come to terms with how sick her mother is, struck with a degenerative disease for which there is no cure. The only “cure” so far has been developed by Ella’s father; unfortunately, his death put a stop to any improvement in that regard. As a way of relieving some of her pain, Ella’s mother (a scientist as well) has created the Reverie, a system that allows people to relive their best, happiest memories in a dream-like state. But what’s been used so far as a recreational machine only has the potential to be so much more, especially after Ella realises she can link to a “dreamer”, and enter his/her Reverie to spy on and/or manipulate it.

We’re given to see the world through Ella’s prism, which is at times a narrow one, focused, as mentioned above, on what’s left of her family, and also her best friend Akilah (when they manage to communicate with each other, because the other girl is currently serving in the army). Information and world-building are thus done little by little; it’s a method I tend to prefer to large info-dumps, so depending on a reader’s preferences here, it may be a very good thing, or a problem. What I can say: I didn’t feel it difficult to get the bigger idea, even though there were moments I would have want to learn just a little more about the rest of the world, most specificically the “secessionist”, possibly “terrorism-infested” countries. This aspect made the novel feel like your average YA dystopia, but somewhat seemed both exploited and left on the side of the road at the same time.

I found Ella’s quest in general interesting, raising many questions regarding who you can trust, how can you be sure you can trust them, who is who, whether conscience resides in the brain or in the body or is yet something even more impossible to grasp. There were a few nice twists in the book about that. I just regretted the scientific aspect behind those, behind the technologies developed, wasn’t given more of an explanation—I’m not particularly a hardcore fan of hard-science SF, but I like having a little more meat on the bones, so to speak.

Another good thing about Ella: she wasn’t the average girl-falls-for-boy YA heroine. When an unknown, handsome but somehow dangerous-looking guy grasps her wrist to “warn” her about something, she doesn’t fall for his looks, she doesn’t immediately trust him: no, she punches him, which is a reaction far healthier than a lot of crap I’ve read in novels with similar characters. She looks for him for answers, but she does so knowing she may have to betray him afterwards; she’s ready to use him, not because she’s deeply manipulative, but because she’s wary, and aware that if she doesn’t do it, she might fall into a trap. After all, she doesn’t know him, while he keeps claiming the contrary: isn’t that fishy? Those reactions don’t necessarily make for a very likeable character at first, but they seemed to me definitely more believable than girl-falls-in-love-in-five-minutes. (Also there are tinges of insta-love, but they make sense… only explaining why would mean revealing too much.)

About the writing: the author delivers compelling chapters, and avoids the typical pit traps of weird metaphors (I’ve seen my share of those in YA lately…) and purple prose. This works pretty well in a no-nonsense way, and fits with the science fiction aspect.

The last chapters play a little too much on convenient happenings, which spoilt a little my enjoyment of the book. But overall, while not exceptional, I liked it. I’d deem it a 3.5*.

Yzabel / November 9, 2014

Review: The Paper Magician

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic…forever.

Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.

An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.

Review:

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

Enjoyable as a fast read, but with a few things that prevented me from enjoying it more. I’d give it 1.5 stars.

Because I like talking about good things first: the magic. Granted, it could have been more developed, but I could still get a good enough idea of the possibilities it offered, and of the restrictions imposed by bonding to one material, and one material only. As Ceony discovered what being a Folder involved, I couldn’t help but try to find uses of my own for it: what could I do with paper, could books and stories be used for something else than illusions, and so on. When something spurs my imagination, it’s always good. Paper magic just looked so beautiful. Moreover, I shall confess to a personal (and somewhat perverse, I think) fascination in general with magic linked to the use of flesh, and there were such magicians in there, which made me go all “Yessss! Here it is!”

Another thing I liked was the tone and atmosphere, somewhat whimsical, somewhat innocent, allowing me to discover Ceony’s new life in a “fresh” way. That was a very pleasant side to this novel. The paper dog was just adorable—just like it was a good example of what Folding magic can achieve.

The second part of the book, in which Ceony had to navigate Thane’s heart, left me with mixed opinions. To me, it was both interesting and boring. Fairly interesting in how it dealt with having to face a person’s love and hopes, but also darkness and regrets, in order to find a way out; but boring because the antagonist had struck me as more aggressive in the beginning, and seemed to take her sweet time in there. And I’m still not sure why exactly Thane’s heart was such a prize. For some ritual? Just out of spite? Maybe the answer lies in the second book. I don’t know.

I had a lot of trouble empathising with Ceony. While I could understand her disappointment at being assigned to Folding instead of Smelting, I also thought her pretty whiny in that regard, considering how lucky she had been getting into magic school for starters. Folding over Smelting every day, girl, if this is the key to a better life than what you could expect otherwise! Fortunately she came around at some point, but there were still a few moments when I wondered why a character shown as hard-working and resourceful (she graduated within one year, the shortest time possible) couldn’t wrap her mind faster around all the possibilities. Sometimes, the magic almost felt “wasted” on her.

As for the romance: not impressed. Unrequited, with too many things about the guy. In the end, I didn’t feel like I had gotten to know Ceony that much, as if she only came second. Though her backstory came out now and then, it was always kept at a distance compared to Thane’s, and it was too bad. The girl had her lot of hard experiences, which should have shaped her… yet they didn’t seem to be part of her as much as thrown in there like an afterthought. The rest revolved about Thane. (And Ceony blushed all. the. time. Alright, alright, red-haired people often have fair skin and I suppose fair skin tends to blush, but it was really tiresome after a while.)

Last but not least, the way the (alternate) historical period was tackled was a bit muddled: for quite some time, I wasn’t even sure when exactly the story was set. Quite a few elements looked and sounded too modern for something that, all in all, was supposed to be the early 1900s, and apart from some names, the place did not exactly “feel” like London at the turn of the previous century, either.

Despite those problems, I’ll still read the second book (if only because I also got it from NetGalley, and think I therefore owe it a review), but I hope I’ll like it better.

Yzabel / October 13, 2014

Review: Soulless

Soulless by Amber Garr

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

When it comes to death and love…only one is guaranteed.

Four decades ago Nora died. A tragic event for someone so young; however, four decades ago Nora was also given a second chance to walk among the living.

A Death Warden with a mysterious past, her job is to escort the newly expired towards the light, battling with the Soul Hunters who want the freshly dead to help with their own evil purposes buried in the dark.

When Nora’s charges suddenly become targets, she realizes that the hunters are after far more than just souls. A shift in power between good and evil threatens to change everything, risking the lives of the only family Nora has ever known.

Devastated and angry, she’s forced to face the man she once loved – a man who chose darkness over her – in order to find the answers she needs to stop the horror from escalating. Yet, while a lost relationship still haunts her broken heart, a new Warden with secrets of his own will enter the mix and quickly alter everything Nora believed to be true.

Death is unavoidable…but sometimes, so is love.

Review:

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

Interesting premise and world (Death Wardens vs. Soul Hunters), but characters that turned out too difficult to stand, at least for me.

The story reads fast, and getting into it was quite easy. We’re quickly introduced to what being a Warden entails, and to what Soul Hunters do. Granted, their names kind of make it obvious; still, it’s good to see such things explained through active scenes, and not just in passing. Even though this could have become an info-dump, it didn’t (or if it did, not in a way that felt like I was having tons of information dumped on me).

However, I had the constant, nagging feeling that something was off. I suspected that the “something” was the characters. Some two thirds in, it just didn’t work anymore at all.

Nora is almost sixty: she died at eighteen, then spent fourty years as a Warden. Despite her long experience, though, she behaves like a teenager in more than one way, from moping about her mysterious death (understandable if it’s just happened, less interesting if it was ages ago) to letting her “hormones” lead the ball (she’s dead, by the way, so why would she still have hormones anyway?). That’s a specific pet peeve of mine, but I think it’s a justified one: when using characters that are older than they look, they must also act older, otherwise we might as well be shown a regular 18-year-old heroine.

While it seems that she’s going to be a leading character, the one with experience, compared to the younger one she has to teach, she actually becomes rather passive. Sure, she trains to fight. Sure, she’s given a charge of her own. Then she turns into the girl who has to be protected. You’d think that fourty years later, she wouldn’t need that so much. I wanted to see her actually teaching things to Jason; I got Jason jumping in front of her to save her.

Jason: nice character at first sight, a soldier who actually enlisted because he wanted to become a medic and thought he’d learn useful things in that regard in the army. Yet also a cliché (cowboy, ranch, manly man of manliness).

Then came the testosterone and jealousy contests. Apart from a couple of Elders, the few other female characters are, of course, girls who intend on seducing Jason:

A pretty, young girl with bright red hair and matching lips jumped forward. Her eagerness irritated me even though it shouldn’t. She stepped into the circle, eyeing Jason like a piece of chocolate cake with whipped cream and a cherry on top. Biting her bottom lip seductively, I rolled my eyes.

Ensue staring, dark glares, fighting in as revealing clothing as possible to grab the guy’s attention, and bodies getting too close to each other during training. Slut shaming wasn’t 100% in the open, but it definitely kept swimming under the surface. (Also dangling participles here and there, as you can see from the quote.)

This is one of those instances in which the romance clearly ruined the game for me. I’m not fond of love triangles in general, but that’s because they’re usually cliché, and tend to take over the actual plot. While the stakes could have been alluring here, after a while, it was very difficult for me to go past the typical “bad guy in black vs. manly soldier ex-cowboy”—complete with jealous, passive-aggressive domineering attitude:

He paused, something else balancing on the tip of his tongue. “Did you say Sani and Theron saved you?”
I shivered with the memory, and Jason held me tighter. His heavy arm felt like an iron clamp, gluing me to his side forever.

Guys, there’s a bigger problem looming on the horizon, and actually the horizon is getting very, very close because the book’s ending soon. Can we focus?

Add a bit of ain’t-telling-you-nothing (as in, some characters definitely know a lot more, yet refuse to spit the information out until, obviously, it’s much too late for that). I just don’t like that, since it creates an artificial delay in readers getting said information, while we all know we won’t get it anyway due to the character-rendered-unable-to-speak trope. (I swear, I can feel that one coming from miles away.)

In short: a good idea for a story, with themes that usually grab my interest (death, reapers), yet characters that grated on my nerves too much for me to enjoy it, and probably also a plot dealt with too quickly (there would have been more room for it without the girls competing over the guy, for sure). 1.5 stars.

Yzabel / October 11, 2014

Review: The Red Magician

The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

The Red Magician is the tale of Kicsi, a young girl in a backwoods Eastern European village in the early 1940’s, a hamlet so isolated that the villagers know nothing of the brewing war – have no hint of the future save for ominous dreams. Into this village comes Voros, a redheaded wanderer, a juggler and magician, to disrupt their lives and antagonize the local rabbi…with whom he must fight a cabbalistic duel to which Kicsi is a secret witness. Then the Nazis arrive, and the world changes. Kicsi is first imprisoned, then must journey with Voros back to what remains of her village, for a climactic battle between the old world and the new. The Red Magician is a notable work of Holocaust literature, a distinguished work of fiction, and a marvelously entertaining fantasy – as Philip K. Dick remarked upon its first publication, “nourishment for the mind and the soul.”

Review:

(I got a copy courtesy of OpenRoad Media through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

An interesting short story, though I must admit it wasn’t exactly what I expected, and I ended up not liking it as much as I hoped.

On the one hand, I could easily feel the magic permeating the atmosphere, the strange aura surrounding Vörös. Moreover, there’s a golem in the middle, and I’m often very, very partial towards golems (everybody has their favourite mythological/magical creature; well, this is mine).

I liked the theme of revenge and misdirected anger woven through the story. Though not original in itself, it hit home, and the book managed to show how sterile and blind revenge may be, yet also how born from genuine feelings: when your fear and grief for your loved ones are so strong, and when you can’t actually strike at the real culprits, what else can you do? Wouldn’t you turn to the next designated villain in your line of sight—even though he’s not a villain, even though he’s not responsible?

On the other hand, I found that the characters in general lacked substance. I didn’t really get to “feel” the presence of Kicsi’s family, for instance, nor of her potential fiancé, and so their fates seemed almost as secondary. I kept wondering why Vörös didn’t fill a more active role: he could probably have done a lot more (alright, at some point he was missing some of his tools… but there might have been a way to retrieve them), and instead kept going away. This didn’t really fit with his claims of having wanted to warn people, to the point where his worry and eagerness actually achieved the contrary.

The Holocaust part, too, felt rushed, and not exploited in a way that could have made the novel really striking. I sensed that more could’ve been done to it, because the author definitely seemed to have a knack to describe both the camps and the life before them in a peaceful community.

Conclusion: a likeable story, with powerful elements that may not have been exploited to their fullest potential.

Yzabel / September 19, 2014

Review: Amity

Amity by Micol Ostow

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

For fans of Stephen King and American Horror Story, a gruesome thriller suggested by the events of the Amityville Horror.

Inspired by a true-crime story of supernatural happenings and gory murders, Amity spans two generations and beyond to weave an overlapping, interconnected tale of terror, insanity, danger, and death.

Review:

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

I watched the Amityville movie some 20 years ago, and never read the book, so I won’t comment much on how faithful to the original story this novel is… or how it diverged from it. I remember some elements (the red room, characters always waking up at the same time, the door banging, the “healer” character being thwarted…), and I think they were used in ways both similar and different. Is it a good or a bad thing? I don’t know. For me, it felt appropriate, at least. I tend to like cameos, winks at other works of literature, and so one.

I liked how both narrators’ voices were clearly distinct, not only because of the fonts used, but simply because their tone, their ways of thinking, were different enough. Gwen is more fragile, while Connor’s instability is expressed more violently. Gwen is more intuitive, and Connor “colder”. In fact, his case was pretty easy to figure out, and his narrative reflected his problems fairly well.

This said, while I enjoyed the setting, the writing itself unfortunately got on my nerves to such an extent that it ruined my reading experience. Why? Too much hammering, too much repetitions (she was shot in the head, I mean, you know, go away crazy, I mean, she was shot in the head, she was shot IN THE HEAD). I get why they were here, emphasising Gwen’s unstable mental state and Connor’s sociopathic tendencies, but I have an aversion to heavy-handed writing styles, the ones that tell me what I should feel, instead of subtly hinting at it. Apart from the standard sentences (see above), often the story made a point of repeating the same event several times, as if to flash a huge neon sign above it, in case someone would have missed it. Example:

My mother stood in the doorway of the sewing room.
My mother stood, head cocked slightly, looking quizzical, in the doorway of the sewing room.
She wasn’t directly behind me[…]
She hadn’t been behind me at all.
She’d been standing in the doorway of the sewing room.
My mother had been standing, not behind me, but in the doorway of the sewing room.
She’d been standing in the doorway of the sewing room this whole time.

Frankly, this doesn’t induce fear in me. This just makes me cringe and roll my eyes, thinking, “OK, I GET IT.” I don’t like being openly manipulated. Suspension of disbelief, for me, rests on a text’s ability to make me forget the ropes, so that I end up realising that I’ve been led all the way without realising it. Conversely, I don’t react well to techniques that poke me without subtlety in the right direction. It’s like someone’s grabbing my head, looking at me in the eyes and screaming: “Look, this is scary! I’m repeating it because you’re meant to feel it! Are you scared yet, Huh? HUH?” As said, I get why such effects were used, Gwen and Connor being damaged characters. But the way they were handled just irked me. Sometimes, it happens. And it’s too bad.

The novel also borrows from a few other works (notably “Carrie”, for the stones), and I don’t think that was a good idea. It came out of nowhere as far as Gwen was concerned, and though it had its use, it just felt like a cop-out to me. And not frightening either. Mostly, I didn’t find this novel scary. It lacked subtlety to achieve that, and the last chapters were too muddled to give it a proper ending.

I had high hopes for this story, and I wish I had liked it, but alas, this didn’t come to pass. 1.5 stars.