Book Review: Untold

[osprey_archer]

I have read Sarah Rees Brennan's Unspoken! And now I must really set aside novels and actually finish my final projects. One of them is a lengthened rewrite of my American Girl paper, it should not be as hard to write as it is...

But first: a review of Untold.

1. Let me begin with my ridiculous crack theory: Angela and her brother Rusty are werecats. Think about it! They both spend all their time lounging, sleeping, eating, and occasionally practicing their self-defense skills. Angela hates everyone, and Rusty barely cares about anything: two common cat personalities. IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

The rest of it is spoilery for the first book if not the second, so I'm putting it behind a

2. I like the way that the book advances (or doesn't advance) Angela and Holly's relationship. It makes sense to me that Holly, given that she's just learned her whole family has aligned itself with the evil sorcerer faction that wants to recommence human sacrifice - and just learned that she's a sorcerer herself - doesn't want to deal with a crisis about her own sexuality at the same time.

(And while we're talking Angela, I also like the fact that her friendship with Kami is one of the steady foundations of Kami's life: even when most of her other relationships are in turmoil, Kami can depend on Angela's snark and support.)

3. BWAHAHA my prediction after the end of Unspoken was totally right, of course Jared didn't mean it when he said Kami was nothing special! He is still obsessed with her, because she is the only stable and emotional supportive relationship he has ever known, and also because she is awesome.

Although actually I wasn't totally right: I thought that Jared pulled away because he wanted to protect Kami from his uncle, when in fact he wanted to protect himself from the pain of rejection. He thought that Kami's breaking the bond meant that she rejected him as too needy. (Kudos to ladyherenya for totally calling this.)

I continue to be impressed by Jared's character development. Often bad boy characters seem to have a sort of cosmetic self-loathing, where it comes and goes at the author's convenience. But Jared's conviction of his own worthlessness permeates everything he does, which is unnerving, even alienating, but ultimately much more interesting.

4. Jared's half-brother/cousin Ash, who yearns to be the third point on the love triangle, is still pretty boring.

5. God, these books are quippy. All of them can come up with one-liners. Even Holly, who comments on her own inability to come up with one-liners, occasionally spits one out. Just once, I want someone in them to face mortal danger in stunned silence or perhaps stammering incoherence, just for something different.

6. Having said that, the book is really funny and I laughed out loud a lot. It's not the quips I mind, it's the fact that it's all quips all the time.

7. Lastly. I'm not as a general rule fond of character death, but if the premise of the story is "the town is in DEADLY DANGER from the sorcerous menace," then I feel like one of the characters that we actually care about should probably die at some point. When we're two books in and none of the main characters have even been seriously injured, the danger just doesn't seem that deadly.

I'm not holding my breath on this one, as Brennan didn't kill anyone in the Demon's Lexicon series either - or in Team Human, but then Team Human didn't bill itself as full of deadly danger. As long as she continues to write about Deadly Peril this refusal to kill anyone will continue to be a flaw.

Comments

[morbane.livejournal.com]

Well that was surely a hook. I had to read it all, spoilers or no, once you mentioned were cats. :D

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I'm pretty sure the werecats exist only in my head, but I liked the theory so much I had to share. The book has magic in it! It could happen!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Now you're making me think that we need a Quip Index or a Quip Rating, and it should pertain either to presence of quips within a book or possibly to quips the book causes people to utter--no, not that: the first thing.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I hereby nominate the Whedon to be the quip index for a work of art. I have not how many quips make a full Whedon, but further experiments will surely work out the details.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

LET'S DO IT. lnhammer used to talk about a ninja score for a story--that was, how much the story could be improved by the insertion of ninjas. The Whedon index seems like that: another very USEFUL tool for assessing works of fiction.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Does this quip undermine the scene's sense of danger or emotional tension? Does it contradict the character's supposed personality as either taciturn or slow? In short, does the author seem to be unable to resist a quip, no matter how out of place or out of character the quip seems? That is one Whedon.