Reviewed by nitzan_schwarz on
This book has been sitting on my shelf for ages - I have a paperback from the first edition, bought brand new. That should give you some idea as to how long it set there.
I really wanted to love this book. Wanted to see in it what everyone else have
Alas...
It's not that this is a bad book. The ideas behind this book are so intriguing and fascinating.
But... yes. Here it is. The BUT.
I did not get into the book, and by that I mean it was super easy to put it down and super hard to force myself to pick it up again, until the last 20% of the book. Before those 20% I was planning on giving this book no more than 2 stars, and I was super sad about it.
THE CHARACTERS
In the end, I can honestly say that I didn't really like Amy or Elder. There were moments I liked one but disliked the other, then they switched, and honestly I have no idea how I feel toward the two in the end.
In some place, I felt they were flat. I never connected to them on an emotional level.
My first impressions of Amy was of a little childish girl:
Her responses to things seemed a bit childish to me, but I did appreciate her spirits - the one that says she's not going to let them intimidate her into hiding in her room or anything.
On the other hand, spirit or not, she didn't do much but run in the story, did she?...
As for Elder... he was fine, for the most part. But that's about that - nothing more than just fine. I liked him better than Amy, but his reactions to stuff where sometime weird. Or rather, his lack of response...
I think I actually liked Harley, Elder's best friend, most. And still, when the stuff with him happened, a voice in my head told me "I should cry at this, shouldn't I?". I didn't. Goes to show how detached I was, even with him...
THE ROMANCE
God. Damn. You. Insta. Love.
This was so frustration for me, romantically wise! Amy has woken up to a reality she doesn't know, without the people she agreed to leave earth for in the first place, but she feels it might be alright because of Elder, whom she's knows for exactly three minutes.
And Elder was basically in love with Amy from before she was even alive!
This kind of things drive me mad... And his confession in the end, while being super shocking and unexpected, didn't really help my opinion on this love relationship...
I wish their love was founded, at least a little bit!
I did, however, like that they didn't move into it this book. Leaves me with hope the next book will redeem this relationship in my eyes.
Plus, Amy forgave Elder sooooooooooooooooooo easily!
THE SYSTEM
I want to give Mrs. Revis kudos for coming up with such a spectacularly creepy system. The ship Amy and Elder are on operates on an Elder/Eldest system--which is basically a system in which for every generation a leader is born in advance, and the Elder before him trains him to lead.
They have timed sexual periods (which are like animals and heat), mono-ethnicity, the people with an artistic bone in them are labeled "crazy" and live in the hospital, everything that is different needs to be dealt with and a lot of other stuff that would be spoilers so I'll keep quiet about them.
Bottom line - it creeped me out. Which is one of the good things about this book.
THE VILLAIN
Eldest, who is Elder's senior, is supposed to be the villain in this story. An evil dictator, if you will.
Pfffffttt.
Good joke. He was the least scary dictator I ever read about! First of all, I understood where he came from. Sure, he did some stuff that were bad, but those came from a long line of people he deemed smarter who planned those out.
Second, he was just not scary at all. Elder went on and on about how scary Eldest can be, but I just didn't see it.
I was more afraid of Doc, who calmly talked about sedating and medicating people for the rest of their lives if they don't behave, than I was of Eldest. And even with Doc, he had about two, three moments like that. The rest of the time he wasn't scary, either.
THE WRITING
The story is told from dual POV, Amy and Elders. Quite frankly, I found all but one of the parts from Amy's POV while she was sleeping unnecessary and meaningless. Personally I felt they just shouldn't really be there...
As for the writing itself, it was pretty unique because it takes inspiration from prose.
It used visual means
Such
As
This
which was really interesting to read. I've never came across a book who uses this before.
One of the most bothersome parts in this book was the made up slang. Revis uses three made up words; frex, frexing and Chutz. Frex and Frexing were easy enough to figure out, but Chutz kept appearing in different context, in different meanings, so I've got no idea what might be his current-slang counterpart, and that irked me. I had several discussions on the subject on Goodreads, trying to get to the bottom of this word. And when you spend more time figuring out the slang than reading the book, you know something's wrong.
However, it would seem Revis erased this word from the other editions? My friends told me they couldn't remember reading it, so maybe it was just cause I've got first edition?
If you've got this book - tell me if it's there?
(PS. I tried using GIFs in this review. Is it better with or without?)
For this review and more, pop by my blog - Drugs Called Books
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 6 January, 2013: Finished reading
- 6 January, 2013: Reviewed