The third book in Rachel Vail’s Avery series was released last Tuesday.  I got my hands on a copy, started reading and all I can say is that Brilliant is… well.. rather brilliant.

Although I have not read the first two books in the series (Lucky and Gorgeous) I’m completely sucked in.  While this is the third book in the series, Brilliant stands quite well on its own and a reader who has not read the previous books will have no problem getting into the story.  In fact, I like the protagonist Quinn so much, it’s hard for me to imagine reading the other two books in the points of view of her younger sisters.  I’ll be curious to read them and see how they compare and how they handle Quinn’s character when she’s not the central focus.

I think the thing that allowed this book to make such an impression on me is how similar I find Quinn is to myself.  Sure, I’ve read plenty of books where I identified with the protagonist.  In fact, one could argue that a strong protagonist has some quality, some essence, that the reader sees reflected in themselves and that is what allows us to sympathize with the character.  But this is different.  Quinn is so similar to how I was in high school, down to the way she gets along with her sisters and her propensity for academic achievement.  It’s like if someone asked me “if you were a character from a novel, who would you be?” I’d want to answer “Elizabeth Bennet” but really, the truth is it’s more like Quinn Avery.

What about you?  Do you have a fictional-character twin?

I first learned about this book at a conference and from the minute I heard the premise, I knew I had to read it.  A teenage girl who sees invisible faeries… how cool is that?  These are not cute little pixie faeries either, but creepy, dark, scary things and from minute one I expected this to be the best.  Book Ever.

Right away I wanted to like this book, and I have to admit, when it came to living up to every expectation, it delivered.  Sort of.  Problem is, it delivered a little too perfectly.  Every time I got to a part where I wanted something as a reader (“gee, I really want to know what Grams thinks of all this…” or “What’s Seth been up to during this scene?”) bam! Marr would hit me with the answer in the next scene.  I felt like I was reading this as a piece from workshop and Marr was anticipating every possible critique I could make.

There’s a fine line between a book that fills a reader’s expectations and one that is predictable.  Wicked Lovely skirts that line throughout.  There was a bit of a lull in the middle when it became very clear to that there was no “easy” way for the central conflict to be resolved.  This meant I had to keep reading in order to figure out exactly how Marr was going to paint herself out of this corner.  Thing is, making a reader keep reading just so they find out how the author resolves the conflict means the reader’s focusing on the mechanics, not the story or the characters.  This is not entirely a good thing.  Also, the inevitability of the central conflict–the fact that there was no solution–meant that the plot slowed down.  After all, there’s only so many times a character can think “there’s no way out of this situation” before the reader says “I get it.  Now get over it and get to the point.”

Also, the way Marr always seems to know just when the reader needs something (a nugget of one character, a hint of a plot thread) means that I never felt like she was holding out on me.  There’s something comfortable about a book that always delivers and in a way, that comfort worked against this novel.  For example, at the end, during a somewhat gruesome scene,  I read the words but I didn’t feel the characters’ agony because I was so used to being in that comfort zone.  Marr did such a good job of making me comfortable as a reader that the book lost its edge.  I know this book is supposed to be dark and edgy with scary-looking fey and characters that have lots of piercings and live in steel train cars, but while my brain registered these details, I didn’t feel them.

I wanted this book to push me outside my comfort zone–to mess with my head a little–and it never quite went there.  When it comes to a good, comfy read, this book does exactly what it should.  It pleases because it’s predictably edgy and conventionally unconventional.  The characters are complex enough to be interesting but not complicated enough to make the reader confuse the good guys from the bad.  We know from the get-go who’s coupling up and who’s going down in the big show-down.   All we need is to find out how the author plans to get there.  This is not a challenging book, but it’s a fun, entertaining read… good for summer and the beach.

iggi says…

One of my favorite picture books is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg.

This book contains various drawings with titles and captions to inspire a story.  The idea is that the reader is left open to devise his or her own narratives from these pictures, captions and titles.

Not only does this book provide several different story possibilities, but the drawings alone are enough to inspire a writer for dozens of stories apiece.  The art is dark and haunting and beautiful.  But before I get carried away, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Looking over the last several reviews I’ve done, I realized that they are heavily weighted toward books about writing.  In part this is because I love reading about craft or reading authors’ advice to new writers.  At the same time, since the semester is drawing to a close–and with the end of semester comes my thesis deadline–I haven’t had nearly enough time to read fiction as I would like.  So today will be another writing book and with luck, by two weeks from now, I’ll be done and ready to start reading for fun again.

This week’s book is The Writer’s Book of Matches by the staff at Fresh Boiled Peanuts.  This book is a collection of writing prompts that range from the normal to the absurd to the hilarious.  There are 1001 prompts so even if you did one each day, it would take you three years to get through the book.  At the end, the editors include a handy-dandy guide on how to reuse the prompts and keep them fresh.  Overall, this book has the essentials for a useful writing book.  There’s plenty of variety and it’s small so it’s easy to carry when writing on the go.