This series should have ended a lot sooner. In fact, I think it would’ve been better off not being a series. Each entry has been written by a different author and stars a different yet connected character in a supposedly ongoing mystery. This main character of this entry is a character introduced in the second book of the series who has little character development in that book and barely any more in this book which makes him inadequate to serve as a protagonist. I will not continue in this series.
If I had not had this book as an eARC from NetGalley, I would’ve DNF’d early on. The narrative takes place in a fantastical version of turn-of-the-century Chicago or New York. The main character, orphaned at age 8, works as a reporter, à la Nelly Bly, and stumbles on a murder of apparently magical origins. The author spends a lot of time in the narrative trying to paint the main character as not like other girls yet also having her react to various scenarios just like other girls. The main character read rather juvenile as did her investigating partner a.k.a. the love interest. Slight spoilers ahead. He apparently has some sort of intolerance to the magic that he practices yet recovers way too quickly and performs actions that the author just set up a few paragraphs before as being impossible for him. I definitely do not recommend this book.
While I expected this murder mystery fantasy blend to work better for me than it ultimately did, I still really enjoyed the narrative. The mystery/fantasy blend seems to almost always work well for me. The author did an excellent job building this world in which magic is used in medicine, setting up a believable education system, as well as qualifying exams, the exams in which the examinees find the dead body that kicks off this plot. As a character driven reader, this book would have worked perfectly if the author had done more character development, not something at the forefront of this plot driven work.
Ken Liu crafted an absolute masterpiece with this four books series that spans over 4000 pages. I have no idea how he kept it all straight. For someone both history and fantasy inclined, this should have been the absolute perfect series for me. Because so much of this work tells the history of this world rather than the story of the characters, I felt more disconnected from the narrative than I expected. I still enjoyed reading the series and stand in awe at Liu’s craft.
This is a cute middle grade graphic novel exploring the process of gentrification, and what preserving home and heritage means. I did not connect with a story as deeply as I thought I would because I was frankly perplexed at the mix of human and animal forms for the various characters. They mixed without distinction. For example, the main character is drawn as a human while her parents are panda bears. This is never explained and has no effect on the plot. I don’t think a middle grade student would be bothered by it, but someone rooted in concrete thinking might be bothered enough by it to not enjoy the read.
I don’t really know what to make of this book. I will admit that rapid, break-neck speed plots with the characters are always one step away from disaster are not really my type of story. I also tend to not prefer apocalyptic stories of alien takeovers, but I have appreciated some in the past. The main difference between the ones I have appreciated and this one is that the world in which the events took place and what happened to the characters made some sort of sense. This one did not. Don’t get me started on the ending either. It’s fine for the characters to be in the dark and to learn things as they go, but not when it seems like the author is also learning those things at the same time. This book will definitely be leaving my home library.
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