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Lissibith

Inkspot Fancy

Comics and fantasy and sci-fi, oh my!

Currently reading

The House on the Borderland
William Hope Hodgson
Dust and Light: A Sanctuary Novel
Carol Berg
The Dead
Jen Hickman, Robert James Maddox
Deadlands: Dead Man's Hand
David Gallaher, Jeff Mariotte, Jimmy Palmiotti
Ghost Hunt 2
Shiho Inada, Fuyumi Ono
Devil Survivor 1
Satoru Matsuba
The Secrets of Jin-shei - Alma Alexander I think this might be the very best book that I've ever had to preface a review of with - I can't recommend this book unreservedly. It has some great aspects to it, but also some deeply disappointing writing choices that sap a lot of the tension out of the story.Starting with the good - the characters are pretty amazing. The entire main cast is made up of women who start as youngsters, some literally children and others a little older, maybe teens. Each is unique both in herself and in how she relates to the others in her circle. Each generally reacts as expected, but often in totally different ways. Their interactions are what carries this entire book, not just from a basic plot point but from an interest point.Also, the choice to base the book on the sisterhood that grew up around a real life written language that only women knew is inspired, and it was a beautiful way to weave a web between the characters.The language is really wonderful, evocative and intimate and just lovely. She has a gift for close, personal scenes and conversations between friends. But there are times the list of main characters seemed needlessly padded. By the time I got to the end, there were several characters whose inclusion I looked at and asked "Why was she there?" And I couldn't find a satisfactory answer. Also, some of the characters got FAR more development than others, leaving those few feeling a bit like caricatures, or one-notes.Also, the author made a curious choice in several points not to show really important scenes, instead just having the character that did it come to someone's house, drink tea and *explain* what should have been an intense, high-action scene. If it happened just once, I'd have assumed it was a stylistic choice related to that particular scene, but by the time it happened a third or fourth time it felt just like a part of her writing. It weakened the story massively, threw a brake on the pace for me and made this one of the hardest books to get through I've had in a long time. Can you imagine watching a version of Hamlet, where instead of the ghost scene, or the death of Polonius, they were all related in the manner of Ophelia's death? "And then I saw the ghost of my father, and he told me about my uncles treachery and set me on a path to kill my Uncle!" "That's rough, man." Oh, but irritatingly enough, we get a rape scene in present-time. If there's one thing we could have started at the end of that would be it.I also found the plot to be really loose. Sometimes that can work, but here, because of the massively high death count, the vagueness of the plot just serves to make the deaths feel pointless, so instead of sad, I just felt sort of cheated. And the ending felt less like an ending and more like the ideas just ran out. It didn't feel resolved. Nothing felt resolved. There's a lot to like here, and if your stomach for the sort of writing problems I mentioned above is stronger than mine, you may well enjoy the heck out of this book. A lot of people have, and like I said at the start, there are some real quality aspects to this story.