A challenging blend of science fiction and fantasy with a unique protagonist. It took me a while to get into the story, which is why it took me so long to read. But once I gave it a chance, the characters and the problems they faced really gripped me.
In many ways this is your classic post-apocalyptic setting, although the author is careful not to fully explain the details of the disaster, but the story is not about survival. Humanity has already gotten past that point. I'm reluctant to say too much more about the book, because it would ruin several key plot twists.
If my AP English teacher from high school read one of the inarticulate reviews that I write today, she would be appalled. Where I could once say something coherent about what was going on in a book, I now tend to just say 'loved it!' or 'not all that good.' My main yardstick for a book is whether it sucks me in. If I open it on Saturday morning, and finish it before falling asleep that Saturday, than it definitely is a very good book. That pull is likely to be a combination of plot and character, plus an interesting setting and graceful language. How exactly that all comes together, I don't analyze very well. That's happened with Cormac McCarthy and Diana Gabaldon, so the topic and style don't have to be at all consistent.[return][return]This book did not suck me in. I started it on a holiday weekend, and didn't …
If my AP English teacher from high school read one of the inarticulate reviews that I write today, she would be appalled. Where I could once say something coherent about what was going on in a book, I now tend to just say 'loved it!' or 'not all that good.' My main yardstick for a book is whether it sucks me in. If I open it on Saturday morning, and finish it before falling asleep that Saturday, than it definitely is a very good book. That pull is likely to be a combination of plot and character, plus an interesting setting and graceful language. How exactly that all comes together, I don't analyze very well. That's happened with Cormac McCarthy and Diana Gabaldon, so the topic and style don't have to be at all consistent.[return][return]This book did not suck me in. I started it on a holiday weekend, and didn't finish it until the following Friday. I was never anxious to know what happened next -- and that's in a book with what are clearly intended to be cliffhangers. It gave me the feeling that elements were being carefully assembled for a movie script that would sell: sexy witch-chick, mysteriously androgynous goth, sexual violence, compulsion, pretty blond imperiled and then killed -- check, check, check, check, check![return][return]Perhaps my problem was that the narrator seemed to be an Emo adolescent, and that just doesn't interest me much. I did find the Frances character, and the world, interesting, though the dystopia and utopia are both a bit too pat.
