Not every review is going to be about something I love. Sometimes I will review things that disappointed me too. Things I thought were going to be great and had high exceptions for that ended up letting me down. Phantom Menace anyone?
Anyways, this one is about a steampunk novel I had really been looking forward to reading. It had a lot of great reviews, but we all know what a trap those can be sometimes.
This is a hard review to formulate
as I can't really decide if I loved the inventiveness of the plot or if
the author's awkward technical skills in writing ruined it beyond hope.
To be a little more specific, without revealing spoilers, I really
enjoyed the Richard Burton character, I loved a lot of the inventions
and contraptions that populated this steam punk setting, and I thought
the whole idea behind who and what the Spring Heeled Jack was, was
really clever.
However, the author's clumsy use of denouement and exposition derail the story every time they make an appearance...at one point their is a villain-reveals-his-evil-plot scene every bit as awkward as something from a child's cartoon, and it takes place half way through the book! The other big reveal is so contrived and awkward, I wanted to fling my Kindle across the room and break it. It involves Burton breaking into the villains' hide out just in time to hear their leader EXPLAIN IT ALL to his co-conspirators, as if they did not already have a part in what happened. And then launches into telling the Spring Heeled Jack's story, which takes up a significant portion of the book. It would have been much better to have done without this awkward framing device and just made Jack's story it's own part of the novel: Part 1 is from Burton's POV and experiences, Part 2 is from Jack's and explains the crazy things we saw in part 1 and did not understand, and then Part 3 is the resolution.
As I write my thoughts down, I relive the frustrations and sadly, they are the things that stay with me more than the enjoyment I took from the rest of the reading experience.
However, the author's clumsy use of denouement and exposition derail the story every time they make an appearance...at one point their is a villain-reveals-his-evil-plot scene every bit as awkward as something from a child's cartoon, and it takes place half way through the book! The other big reveal is so contrived and awkward, I wanted to fling my Kindle across the room and break it. It involves Burton breaking into the villains' hide out just in time to hear their leader EXPLAIN IT ALL to his co-conspirators, as if they did not already have a part in what happened. And then launches into telling the Spring Heeled Jack's story, which takes up a significant portion of the book. It would have been much better to have done without this awkward framing device and just made Jack's story it's own part of the novel: Part 1 is from Burton's POV and experiences, Part 2 is from Jack's and explains the crazy things we saw in part 1 and did not understand, and then Part 3 is the resolution.
As I write my thoughts down, I relive the frustrations and sadly, they are the things that stay with me more than the enjoyment I took from the rest of the reading experience.
2 and half
stars out of 5
