Saturday 26 November 2016

Every Mountain Made Low

29430524

Book Title: Every Mountain Made Low
Author: Alex White
Date Started: November 11th 2016
Date Completed: November 25th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Dystopian, Thriller
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Star
Final Rating: Four stars
Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this ebook for review ◆

Every Mountain Made Low was, for the most part, very enjoyable. It's only really just occurring to me how strange that title is; there's no clear link to the story, and the general atmosphere it suggests doesn't suit this book. Nonetheless, White had an engaging premise, a great protagonist and executed his story very well in places - but overall, I can't help feeling that this novel didn't reach its full potential, both in storyline and style. Towards the end, I got the feeling that a word count was trying to be met, rather than the tide of the story naturally taking White along to the end.

White's writing style was generally unremarkable, but concise enough to leave the reader open to engage with the storyline. I often struggle to find something to talk about when there's nothing blatant to praise or criticise in the style of prose, but actually the fact that I was able to fall so easily into the story White was trying to tell is a huge strength of the book in itself.

Every Mountain Made Low has a pretty standard crime-based storyline, but with an added twist of ghosts. When I first read the description of this book on NetGalley, that was certainly something that stuck out to me. In the end, it ended up being less of a key concept and more of a little flavour to the action scenes - when I mentioned that this book didn't reach its full potential, this was definitely one of the things that could've been utilised better. The whole flow of White's ideas could've improved from a little more work, but there was a solid enough world holding things together that it was still enjoyable.
When I began this book my immediate thought was 'five stars, I love it.' From there on certain things happened that I wasn't so happy with, and then a really good part came up again and I was continually switching between five and four stars (and sometimes three, I'll be honest). I was still pretty undecided three-quarters in as to how to rate this book, but then the downward spiral started to come undone. The biggest weakness of this book is that it loses its steam towards the ends: where the beginning had been overall quite slow in worldbuilding, character development and events, the end suddenly had so much condensed into a much smaller space. Normally this wouldn't have torn down a book so much for me, but the momentum of the initial engagement had just run out by that time. Suddenly characters felt very inconsistent past Loxley and there were huge jumps in relationship dynamics in favour of getting to the end of the plot. The conclusion definitely dragged on longer than we needed for how quickly things felt like they were wrapped up. I felt like I'd missed two or three chapters right in the middle of the book where everything should've been properly transitioned into the approach of the climax. Instead, we go from the 'everyday' - however horrible and strange that is for Loxley - into the concluding sequences, when really we needed just a little bit more establishing of where we were headed.

If we're talking about the characters in this book, Loxley is really all the focus you have. Don't get me wrong, there's a whole host of various different people, but no one is really given that much attention in terms of development as our protagonist is. Understandably, I'll admit, because Loxley is a brilliant portrayal of a strong character with a learning disability - something I've come across maybe twice before in my many years of reading. As someone who doesn't know that much about learning disabilities (and so doesn't want to assume Loxley has autism as opposed to another learning disability), the narration did a really good job of showing how Loxley reacts to things is perfectly understandable from her perspective, but points out where other people just don't understand her. Manipulation and general ignorance towards her disability were also shown pretty well, I think, and White intertwined it all quite naturally within the primarily crime-based storyline.

A sort of dystopian meets crime thriller ghost story, Every Mountain Made Low is a very interesting addition to bookshelves. I haven't seen such unflinching diversity for a while, and it was so nice to read about characters who aren't in the mainstream but don't even really ponder on the fact that they aren't. Though things drifted off towards the end for me, I enjoyed reading it for the most part and think the adult crime genre will welcome it happily.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29430524-every-mountain-made-low

Thursday 10 November 2016

Versailles

27993245

Book Title: Versailles
Author: Yannick Hill
Date Started: October 29th 2016
Date Completed: November 9th 2016
Genres: Sci-Fi, Adventure
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Star
Final Rating: Three stars
Review:

◆ Thanks to Unbound Publishers for this copy for review ◆

Versailles was an interesting idea and something I hadn't seen before in the Young Adult genre but it wasn't pulled off as well I would have liked. There were a lot of things I liked about this book, but they were far and few in between and as a whole piece, it couldn't hold my attention. I got about half way through, but unfortunately I just had to make the decision to leave it there because I wasn't giving it much attention anymore because it just left me unengaged.

When I started this book I was pleasantly surprised by how different it felt. The first thing that I noticed was how like a script it read - and in a good way. I can see how some people might find it a bit disjointing, but for a film geek like me, it was strangely refreshing. Not least in the way that it hid some of the very direct storytelling the Hill uses; I hate it when authors tell the reader things in a situation or about a character instead of showing them through the action, but it wasn't so frustrating in this style. Unfortunately, it isn't really enough to hold up a story that doesn't feel like it's progressing even at the halfway point.

The story about the family inside the digital fortress of Versailles was miles ahead of the exploration of technology's influence on our culture. This isn't even that much of an insight into what constant, inescapable media could do to a family in a fictional world, it's about this particular family. Perhaps if the message around technology wasn't so confused it might be different, but what I read in the first half of the novel showed the evilness of humans to be a far greater threat than the technology they used to stay in power. Honestly, as far as I could tell the technology wasn't that damaging at all (it's even a very clear and effective escape for River's problematic situation), but it's in fact the father who's ruining these people's lives - a father who is painted as a one-sided psychopath, I might add.
Which moves me onto my other issue that made it had for me to stay engaged and immersed in the story: I didn't know what I was supposed to take seriously. There's a lot of abstract imagery in Versailles, and that caught my attention at first, but then there's some things that I don't know if they're actually there in this futuristic technological dystopia, or if they're a metaphor. When you combine that with some honestly ridiculous attempts to create teenage memes or whatever you want to call it, you cross a line between what can be understood in the suspension-of-belief that fiction creates, and what's just silly. I don't know what parts of Versailles were supposed to be taken seriously and what was intended to be satirical, and I think that comes from putting some character into prose.

I think the biggest problem for me was that the characters were just dislikeable. Now, I appreciate they're all supposed to be brainwashed at the start (presumably it develops a little more in the second half of the book, but I didn't see huge leaps in the first portion), but it's exaggerated to the point where I didn't like them, and I wasn't rooting for them or anything they did. And the problem was then that you're supposed to connect to these people being smothered in this futuristic digital palace, but I didn't because they felt so alien and emotionless to the point where it wasn't enjoyable to read about them. Even Missy, who arguably leads the story through her rebellious act of running away from both her home and all social media, doesn't feel like she actually believes in what she's doing. They're characters going through the motions of a narrative without the heart to come to life.

For an exploration into the influence of technology for a Young Adult audience, Versailles is an interesting new addition to what's available. Personally, it couldn't decide on what it was enough to be able to get me on board, but there are definitely some aspects which I was pleasantly surprised to read about. It's not quite contemporary but features family dynamics, not quite sci-fi but is definitely very futuristic, not quite adventure but has road-trip aspects to it - the list goes on. I can't say I've seen anything exactly like it on the market so if it sounds intriguing maybe it'll be that something new for you.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27993245-versailles