Invisible Things

Invisible Things Jenny Davidson

I loooooooooooooooooooooooved The Explosionist. As soon as I finished, I wanted more. I loved the alternate-history world that Davidson had built. I loved the mystery and the tension. IRLYNS creeped the hell out of me.

I had been waiting FOREVER for the sequel. I was so excited when my hold came in!

Sadly... it fell short. Really, really short.

I've been sitting on this review for awhile, to see if I could temper it a bit. How many of my problems are the actual fault of the book and how many are just "it's not the book I wanted?"

Sadly, I've come to realize that my major issue with the book had nothing to do with my expectations.

Mikael and Sophie have successfully made it to Denmark. War still looms and there are shocking developments in Sophie's back story (the explosion that killed her parents wasn't an accident! Aunt Tabitha has scandalous secrets!) It starts with a terrorist attack on Niels Bohr's birthday party. We then jump back a few months to Mikael and Sophie's life living at the Institute for Theoretical Physics. We know the attack is coming and that Sophie and Mikael will be there. Plus there's a beautiful femme fatale Russian Weapons Dealer that might be masterminding the whole thing...

But...

It overall just felt really flat.

This should have been just as gripping and tension filled as the first. There are certainly enough exciting plot points and developments but it just never got to the same level as the first book. Also, certain things that I loved about the first book get dropped. The whole spiritualist movement is only mentioned occasionally, almost in a "oh yeah, we should talk about that because it was so big in the last book" sort of way. But it was such a huge part of the world Davidson built in the first book and isn't a part of the world in this book at all. Also, I missed the creepy IRLYNS subplot. I know that they couldn't do a lot about it because Sophie was no longer in Scotland but... it just gets the occasional mention because, well, it's not like you could completely ignore what was going on there.

There are a few good things-- I did love how science-y this one is. I liked the conversations between the physicists. I also liked the food. Sophie sure does love cake, and I sure do love reading about it. (Cut me some slack, I'm almost 7 months pregnant. There is nothing in the world more important than cake.)

BUT BUT BUT the last 100 pages turn the whole thing into a retelling of The Snow Queen (although in doing some poking around to see if there will be a sequel, I discovered that The Snow Queen was Davidson's original title.) But, I found the shift to fairy tale retelling jarring and odd, especially if you couple the story of this book with the first book. (And you know how much I love a fairy tale retelling!)

And then the end, OMG WHAT?! (Spoiler filled rant here) It ends at a weird spot with a complete shift in character and tone and left most of the plot just dangling and unresolved.

I loved The Explosionist so much and there is still so much unresolved that I really hope there's another book, but this book just went in a weird direction that I don't understand. It actually angered me.

So, I really hope there is another book, one that's closer to The Explosionist than this. I loved that first book so much that I'm still very interested in what happens next even though this one just left me colder than the creepy ice palace.


Book Provided by... my local library

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I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

I'd like to thank my readers for bearing with my blog hiatus as I went a-conferencing and would like to thank everyone who came out to MLA and came to my presentation on What's New in Young Adult Literature! (I talked about 175 books in the course of an hour. It was awesome.)

I had a great time and am now back home.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to finally get my challenge updates posted, as well as the winners of the England Prize draw for the Guardian Book Challenge. In the meantime, here are some book reviews! Huzzah! These are coming from my massive file of pre-written reviews.

The Explosionist Jenny Davidson

This really is just as good as everyone says it is.

Set in Scotland in an alternate 1930s, where Napoleon won Waterloo, the Hanseatic League still exists, and spiritualism is real and you can talk to ghosts through radio waves, Davidson weaves an excellent story of terrorism, murder, and political intrigue.

Sophie and her friend Mikael are investigating the mysterious murder of a famous medium when they realize the plot goes much, much deeper than they ever imagined and has ties to the highest levels of government. There's obviously a lot more to it, but the less I give away, the better.

The story is gripping and fraught with tension. The IRLYNS subplot is creepy, but in a way that's almost believable. (And when I say "almost" I don't mean that I didn't fully buy it, I mean, that I could pretty much believe that the IRLYNS subplot could be actually happening right now in our own world.)

Sophie's world is some much almost like ours, but not quite... there has to be a sequel coming, right? While the book ended in exactly the right place, there is so much left unanswered that I need more!

Guardian Julius Lester

Lester has a way of punching you in the gut with his books. Think Day of Tears and The Old African, not so much Cupid.

It's the Deep South, 1946. Zeph Davis is a psychopath that no one questions because his family owns the town. The preacher's daughter has become suddenly beautiful. Ansel (white) and Willie (black) have a friendship despite their racial differences, though always marred by the status differences between them because of their skin. This summer, they're learning to dream.

You know it will end in a lynching of an innocent man.

It's really Ansel's story. This lynching will be seen through the eyes of a young white boy.

The prose is spare, the chapters short, and the story only takes up 119 pages, a novella almost, really. The minimalist approach provides the greatest impact. He could have given us more, but by holding back, he gives his story more power and resonance.

After finishing, I had to curl up in a ball and not talk to anyone for awhile. After writing this review, I want to do the same.