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osprey_archerThere should be a name for a group of book reviews. A coven, a gabble, a fleet of book reviews?
As I only have two, I suppose we could call it a dyad. Russian used to have a special plural for duals, and while I’m glad its mostly vanished because that means I needn’t learn it, I think the fact that it existed is cool.
I wish my school had a modern languages major. I think I could perfectly happily study languages, and little else, for the rest of my college career; languages are one of the few things you can’t learn, or can only learn with great difficulty, without some kind of outside help. History and government you can learn from books; for a language, you need a teacher.
But back to the book reviews. These contain spoilers, as always.
Antonia is a straight-A student, despite the fact that her father abandoned the family, her mother is so clinically depressed she can’t get out of bed, and the care for her younger brothers has thus fallen entirely on her slender fourteen-year-old shoulders. As if that wasn’t enough, the junior high counselor has asked Antonia to act as peer counselor for a punk girl named Jazz.
Jazz comes from a wealthy family and has loving, if slightly overbearing, parents. She’s surrounded by friends, and she plays the piano so well that she might just get a scholarship to Julliard, except her vile parents expect her to wear clothes without holes to the audition, woe.
Antonia’s life is falling down around her ears despite her best efforts; Jazz is doing her level best to pull her own life down around her ears too, even though fate unkindly handed her all kinds of good fortune.
I found it difficult to sympathize with Jazz, when Antonia’s problemsare actually problems are just so much more compelling. It isn’t as big a problem as it could be, as the book is all in Antonia’s point of view (the set-up of the book made me expect an alternating point of view, which might have made me more sympathetic to Jazz, now that I think about it), but I did find Antonia’s sympathy and patience with Jazz’s “problems” inexplicable, given that hers are so much worse..
Which leads me to the other main problem with the book: Jazz and Antonia develop a rapport far too quickly. And not just a “I guess we can work together” sort of rapport; they become best friends, mutually supportive and caring. The author pays lip service to the idea that their relationship is difficult, but there’s really not evidence for it in the text; they are instead frictionless, which is boring.
Welcome to alternate universe Britain, where everyone is gay! Oh, and also the British negotiated a peace with the Nazis in 1941 and have been drifting vaguely toward fascism ever since.
No, seriously, these are very very gay books. I think that all but three of the male characters are gay (and at least one of the non-gay ones is bisexual), which makes me feel bad for the females, most of whom remain inexplicably straight. It makes me wonder if the author writes/used to write slash.
But leaving that aside. I am of two minds about these books. On the one hand they’re compelling enough that I read all three, despite having to wait a couple years from book to book, but on the other hand…well, really, the first book is by far the best. It’s a tightly woven alternate history mystery story, with a satisfying if depressing end. The plots of the next two books become increasingly muddled and unsatisfying, and the ending of the last one in particular is incredibly anti-climactic.
So the first one is worth reading. But it’s difficult to quit after just one, although you’ll really wish you had.
As I only have two, I suppose we could call it a dyad. Russian used to have a special plural for duals, and while I’m glad its mostly vanished because that means I needn’t learn it, I think the fact that it existed is cool.
I wish my school had a modern languages major. I think I could perfectly happily study languages, and little else, for the rest of my college career; languages are one of the few things you can’t learn, or can only learn with great difficulty, without some kind of outside help. History and government you can learn from books; for a language, you need a teacher.
But back to the book reviews. These contain spoilers, as always.
Antonia is a straight-A student, despite the fact that her father abandoned the family, her mother is so clinically depressed she can’t get out of bed, and the care for her younger brothers has thus fallen entirely on her slender fourteen-year-old shoulders. As if that wasn’t enough, the junior high counselor has asked Antonia to act as peer counselor for a punk girl named Jazz.
Jazz comes from a wealthy family and has loving, if slightly overbearing, parents. She’s surrounded by friends, and she plays the piano so well that she might just get a scholarship to Julliard, except her vile parents expect her to wear clothes without holes to the audition, woe.
Antonia’s life is falling down around her ears despite her best efforts; Jazz is doing her level best to pull her own life down around her ears too, even though fate unkindly handed her all kinds of good fortune.
I found it difficult to sympathize with Jazz, when Antonia’s problems
Which leads me to the other main problem with the book: Jazz and Antonia develop a rapport far too quickly. And not just a “I guess we can work together” sort of rapport; they become best friends, mutually supportive and caring. The author pays lip service to the idea that their relationship is difficult, but there’s really not evidence for it in the text; they are instead frictionless, which is boring.
Welcome to alternate universe Britain, where everyone is gay! Oh, and also the British negotiated a peace with the Nazis in 1941 and have been drifting vaguely toward fascism ever since.
No, seriously, these are very very gay books. I think that all but three of the male characters are gay (and at least one of the non-gay ones is bisexual), which makes me feel bad for the females, most of whom remain inexplicably straight. It makes me wonder if the author writes/used to write slash.
But leaving that aside. I am of two minds about these books. On the one hand they’re compelling enough that I read all three, despite having to wait a couple years from book to book, but on the other hand…well, really, the first book is by far the best. It’s a tightly woven alternate history mystery story, with a satisfying if depressing end. The plots of the next two books become increasingly muddled and unsatisfying, and the ending of the last one in particular is incredibly anti-climactic.
So the first one is worth reading. But it’s difficult to quit after just one, although you’ll really wish you had.
