Resurrection

Book Title: Resurrection

Author: Derek Landy
Series: Skulduggery Pleasant #10

Date Started: May 30th 2017

Date Completed: June 1st 2017

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery, Action, Horror
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

Of course, the release of Resurrection worried me immensely: what if my beloved series was getting pulled out too far, too thin, what if it wasn't quite the same anymore? But, even though Roarhaven and the magical community is very, very changed from what we left, even though there are new characters and altered favourites, even though the tone is a little different, the heart and soul of the Skulduggery Pleasant series is there. We weren't coming back for the same thing, and Derek knew that. Resurrection is an evolution of the series we know and love that was needed if the story was to carry on. And I'm very glad they did.

I've always been impressed with Derek's style of writing, and each time I read his new book I'm reminded how much he's developed and grown. To fuel his ego even more, we'll call it slick. I especially love how the end and beginning sentences of each chapter often reflect one another; it's like a film where the same word of a sentence has been edited between scenes. It's especially satisfying if you're marathoning the book like I was, so you catch the little jokes between pages.

The political satire is also on point. More than ever, Derek's humour is taking in contextual references which - while not always necessary for a joke to work - makes it all the funnier. It was toeing the boundaries of how far jokes can go at times, but nothing was too much. I just hope it doesn't lean over too far in the future.

The world of Skulduggery Pleasant is pretty broad now, and I think it's wonderful that you can casually teleport around the world and it doesn't feel like a big step. You can have these fantastically crazy magical abilities and people and it fits perfectly well with everything else. Derek is very good with tone and things rarely feel out of place, even if they seem pretty dramatic out of context. Speaking of which, the stakes are raised really high almost immediately in this book. I was smiling, so happy to be back in this world, and then suddenly woah, okay things are already going disastrously wrong. Good old Val and Skulduggery spreading friendly chaos everywhere.

And chaos it definitely it, but not the happy-go-lucky chaos that exists for as long as it's needed and then miraculously gets resolved in a few pages. It's been five years since we left the Ireland of The Dying of the Light, and things have changed because of what happened. Val has changed. We get a proper look at what it's like for an individual to continue after these heroic, but quite frankly terrible things happen, as well as how it makes other people react to them. More on that later. But it's not in the 'oh great everything's really sad now, where's the fun in it.' Don't worry Derek has plenty of wisecracks to keep you smiling.

Now when I heard that Resurrection was going to have a mostly new cast I became a little bit bitter. Little bit. But, I admit, with reluctance, that the new characters are pretty cool too. They're still not Tanith and the others (emphasis on Tanith), but I do admit it took about three/four books for me to warm up to her so I'm willing to give these guys a chance.

Seeing Val again was bizarre considering I grew up with her - like I always say, this series was my Harry Potter. Only my Fantastic Beasts actually features the original protagonist, only five years older and struggling with some dark stuff. Just the way I like it. As a representation of mental illness being featured in a story without it having to be the main plot point, this does pretty damn well. Derek tells the exciting action-adventure story, but he's always taken the effects violence has on people seriously. Val's depression and anxiety are definitely a driving force of some of this book, but they're things that try and test her character along the way, not purely a plot point.

Speaking of, Derek also twisted the 'Chosen One' story in a nice direction. If you've read The Rest of Us Just Live Here, you'll have an idea of what Omen's starting point is like; the painfully ordinary twin of the Chosen One. Ouch. But, of course, Omen becomes a lot more than that. I was really happy, first of all, with the fact that the whole deal of throwing kids into adult wars and fights has been realised to maybe not be the best idea. Not they're just being stubborn and going into it themselves, it seems. But secondly, as much as Omen changes, Derek didn't make it about becoming a hero like his brother. It was about Omen becoming whoever he wanted to be regardless of where he started, and that's just as valuable. You don't have to become the thing that you're not to be important.

All in all, I'm very glad to have some Skulduggery back in my life (not that I've been rereading the series on repeat or anything). It took a series that is very dear to my heart, and quite frankly awesome, and turned it into something a little bit new without losing the feel of the original series. My only criticism: where's my Tanith and when do I get her back?