jnikkir
Written on Nov 28, 2012
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I was SOOOOO happy about winning this book. I got it in the mail and it was so pretty and exciting-sounding and I was going to love it and gush about it and add it to my favorites shelf.
Yeah, no.
All I can think is, it should have been better.
On the surface, it sounds great: The world in Magisterium is divided, one side based on technology and the other on magic. -Awesome!- Book-smart Glenn, who has been struggling with her mysterious-Project-obsessed father, has to deal with first her father's arrest, and then being thrown into this other, magic-based world alongside her best-friend-but-wants-to-be-more, Kevin. -Conflict, sounds promising!- There is a pretty interesting magic system, cool fantastical creatures, ghosts, an evil ruler who needs to be toppled, etc, etc. -Yes, all good!-
This should have worked, right? I mean, it's got so many things going for it. But it just didn't.
I think the reason for this, at least for me, is that the characters felt flat. I couldn't bring myself to care about them. I didn't care if Kevin and Glenn actually got together, because I didn't feel any chemistry there. Yeah, the situation with losing her mom when she was six, and being raised by a preoccupied/obsessed father, kind of sucks. But when that eventually gets resolved, why didn't I feel anything?
One word jumps out at me when I consider how I feel about this book: disconnected. I didn't hate it, I just didn't enjoy reading it because I wasn't drawn into the world(s) or into the lives/motivations/feelings/hardships of the characters. Even though it has a framework that should work, there's not enough there to demand my emotional investment.
And this is my least favorite feeling when finishing a book - apathy. I wanted to love it; I'd settle for being able to find reasons for hating it; but it goes solidly in the "I feel nothing" category.