strange and random happenstance

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: September 29th, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 480 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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What if Grisha could be more powerful? Not to just have their powers amplified but to have them changed. Magnified to a degree that the world itself changes before their eyes and anything is possible. Of course, such a discovery would be desired by the wealthy and the powerful, and especially the military. Bo Yul-Bayur is a chemist who accidentally created Jurda Parem from the common stimulant Jurda. While fatal to Non-Grisha, to Grisha it does all this and more, including making the user an addict after one dose. Afraid of what he has created he attempts to seek asylum in Kerch but is captured by the Drüskelle and taken to the Fjerdan capital of Djerholm and imprisoned in the impenetrable Ice Court. Who knows what the Fjerdan's will do with this technology, seeing as they have been carrying out pogroms on the Grisha "Witches" for as long as anyone can remember. This is where Kaz Brekker comes in. Kaz is the lieutenant of The Dregs and is known as the man who gets things done. So when Mr. Jan Van Eck needs someone to break Bo Yul-Bayur out of the Ice Court he turns to Kaz with the offer of a lifetime. The score from this impossible heist could set him and his crew up for the rest of their lives.

Kaz recruits Inej, the "wraith", Jesper, a born sharpshooter, Wylan, for his demolition skills and the fact that if need be he is Van Eck's son and could be used as a hostage, and Nina, because she's a Grisha who is a Ravkan Heartrender. But more importantly, Nina has a connection to someone who intimately knows Kerch and the Ice Court, former Drüskelle Matthias Helvar. Matthias is in prison because of something Nina said and she's been trying to make it up to him ever since, and breaking him out of prison for a big payday should make them even. Of course their master plan involves sending themselves to prison in Kerch, but at least it will be a change of scene from Hellgate. The improbability and complexity of their plan could go wrong at a million different places, yet it doesn't take them long to be enjoying the hospitality of the Ice Court's prison. This band of thieves will do whatever it takes to get their payday, and whatever obstacles, even those of their own making, must be overcome. They are all good at thinking on their feet, they wouldn't have survived in Ketterdam with all the rival gangs and dangerous alleys if they weren't. But is the payout really worth the risks? And when all is said and done, will they get that payout?

When I finished the Grisha Trilogy I was bereft. I had come to know and love these characters so deeply that I just didn't want to let go. But I could also see that their story was told. It was over and that was that. The light at the end of the tunnel was that Leigh Bardugo was working on a new duology set in the Grishaverse called The Dregs. Eventually retitled Six of Crows with the most amazing cover art I'd seen in recent years I couldn't wait until this book was released and was giving anyone I knew who was lucky enough to get an ARC the side-eye for weeks. OK, months, but you get it, I know you do. I wanted to be back in that world. I didn't care if it was a new country or a new cast of characters, I just wanted more of this wondrous land. And yet, when the time came, I just wasn't swept away. I think of all my book blogging and reading buddies I was the only one who didn't hail it as the best book of last year. In fact, it was nowhere near my top ten. There's even a part of me, looking back, that wonders if three stars was generous. The worldbuilding was still there, and still perfect. Yes it's a little darker, but the void of The Darkling needed to be filled somehow. Yet I just couldn't connect. This heist I had been waiting so long for suddenly didn't seem worth the wait.

The initial problem I faced was there were too many characters given to us too soon. We have six main characters and all their baggage to deal with while certain elements of their backstories are drawn out to excruciating levels with us not finding out answers until the last few pages. To keep this in perspective, A Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, has only eight narrators in a behemoth book of teeny tiny print; and we're barely scratching the surface in that book. To expect THIS book to do more with less seems ludicrous. Also confusing. I need a little time to sink into the narrative of a book, have one character lead me into the world and acclimatise me to the environment before being smacked in the face with the whole gang. There's a reason Ocean's Eleven starts with just Danny Ocean and slowly introduces new characters in little vignettes before having the whole crew together. I think for a book SO like Ocean's Eleven: Ketterdam perhaps the basic framework of a heist film or book could have been better utilized. Instead of starting with the small heist at The Exchange start even smaller and then go bigger.

Yet for a book with six main characters I found one thing very very odd. The exclusion of Wylan Van Eck as a narrator. Six characters but only five POVs!?! That just doesn't add up. I mean yes, there are initially too many characters in this book until you finally get to know them, but then why eliminate a certain one? Why was Wylan left out? Yes, part of it could have been to do with the end twist, but, well, just don't have his POV near the end. Because eliminating him entirely versus just eliminating him for a section makes more sense. There's an imbalance in the book created by this omission. It seriously doesn't make sense to me that we never get Wylan's POV. Especially with his connection to the man who hired Kaz and the crew you'd think Wylan's input would be vital, but instead it's left to other characters to tell Wylan's story. Then there's the whole insulting aspect to this. Wylan is dyslectic and can't read or write. To not have his voice heard when he can't write his own story, WTH! It's just adding insult to injury. I can only hope that Wylan has a say in Crooked Kingdom, but I'm not really keeping my fingers crossed. Kaz's nemesis got a POV at the end of this book and still, no Wylan.

My main problem with the book though was the "problem" with the women. Some people might be saying, how can you have a problem with Inej and Nina when they kick ass and take names? My problem is rooted in the fact that once you look past all their strength their character arcs are oddly stereotypical. At times I thought I was having some sort of out of body experience where this book wasn't written by the writer of the Grisha series populated with strong women and a kick ass female in her own right, but a man who just wrote the typical subjugation line of women in science fiction and fantasy as sex objects and bargaining chips. Inej and Nina spend the entire book showing they are more than what Ketterdam tried to make them in the brothels. They are strong and fierce warriors with love in their hearts. And then all of a sudden they're dressing up as whores to sneak into the Ice Court and ending up as prisoners that only the big brave men can rescue. Excuse me? So all their growth, all their development was for naught? Because they just ended up back at the beginning, victims that need saving? This isn't a just fate for them. This is a cliched, hackneyed fate. They deserve better. I deserve better as a reader!

Though in the end I think the biggest letdown is that Six of Crows just shows us the futility of it all. From the very beginning Kaz's crew are given this impossible task, one at which they could fail at any second, but deep down you know they are going to succeed. But in succeeding they fail. And somehow I knew this. I just knew that they'd make it to the end and yet they'd fail. I don't know if it's all the heist movies I've watched over the years, but somehow I knew it would be like that bus dangling over the precipice at the end of The Italian Job, all that work wouldn't really be worth it in the end. We were left hanging, waiting for the second book. And yes, I'm going to read Crooked Kingdom, but I don't have the excitement anymore. I have a determined resignation. I have no hopes for this book, well, minor hopes that I have a feeling will be quashed quite quickly. Six of Crows was a disservice to the readers. We read a book whose narrative didn't matter. It was nulled and voided at the end and makes you wonder, why then did I bother to read it? Yes, we got to know these characters and to care for them, but it took a long time for that to happen and then it was like everything that had been built between the reader and the story was washed away. I also know that my voice is one small voice among the countless that are lauding this book. Yes, this is just my opinion, but I think a valid one. Leigh Bardugo created a world that I love and then diminished it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Backlog Bonanza, Crooked Kingdom, Darkling, Dregs, Duology, Grisha, GRRM, Heist, Leigh Bardugo, Ocean's Eleven, POV, Six of Crows, Stereotype, The Italian Job, Worldbuilding

Still Life by Louise Penny
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: July 11th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★
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Life in Three Pines is about to change forever. Jane Neal is a doyenne of Three Pines and just one of the many eccentrics loved by the residents. But Jane Neal has a secret. She has painted her whole life but she has never let anyone see her paintings, let alone invited them into her house beyond the kitchen. Jane has decided that the time has come to show the world her art, and in particular her small group of friends. But just two days after being accepted into the area's prestigious juried art show she is found dead in the woods. Her death looks like it might be a hunting accident, it is afterall Thanksgiving Weekend and the bow hunters are out in force. But Chief Inspector Armand Gamace of the Sûreté du Québec who is called in early on that Thanksgiving morning isn't sure Miss Neal's death is an accident. The aim of the arrow is too accurate and the murder weapon is missing. Beneath the placid surface of Three Pines Jane wasn't the only one with secrets to hide. After a shocking gay bashing a few days before Jane's murder, it looks like this small town is going into some kind of revolt and it's up to Armand Gamace and his team to bring back the peace.    

I've heard about Louise Penny and Chief Inspector Gamace for a few years now. But a cozy murder mystery series tends to be a comfort read for me so this book has been on a back burner, waiting, while my bloggerly duties took over my reading. A little over two years ago when they announced that this first book was being adapted for television starring everyone's favorite brooding detective, Inspector Lynley, ahem, I mean Nathaniel Parker as Gamace, I made a note that I should definitely move Still Life up the "to be read" pile. Yet it wasn't until my mother's book club chose it as one of their monthly reads that I finally bit the bullet and devoured Still Life. This book is not a masterpiece, not by a long shot, and falls prey to many problems of the first time writer, but there is something homey about it, something about the community created with the cast of characters that makes me feel deep in my bones that this is a series that will get better as it goes on and I want to read those further stories.

The cast of characters is both the book's strength and weakness. Penny is creating a community that we will want to return to. To me it's like the Candian Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, obviously without the supernatural element. But the thing about the Sookie books is that the mysteries were secondary, it was spending time with this well-rounded cast of characters that made you keep coming back for more. The problem with the cast of characters in Three Pines is that they have potential, but are not well rounded. They are very much the stereotypical cast of characters. The gay couple who run the bistro and bed and breakfast and say "Bitch please" and "Slut" but in a "loving" manner. The large black lady who is a fount of knowledge and down home advice. The kooky artist with the flyaway hair. I could go on and on. But all I'd be doing is listing superficial two-dimensional traits. Yet that's all these characters have! Going forward Penny will have to flesh these characters out because people aren't so superficial and can't be summed up in a catchphrase. Which is why I'm more excited for the future books than I was while reading this one.

The character who harmed this book the most though is Gamace's subordinate, Agent Yvette Nichol. I hated her more than the killer. Yes, I spent an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about her death, that's how much I hated her. Even if she was the red herring baddie used to distract us while Penny waited to reveal the true villain, she was such an annoyance that I could almost not read any part of the book she was in. We've all known people in our lives whose sole outlook on the world is how everything revolves around them. They are in their own little microcosm of unreality where they are the center of the universe. Anything that doesn't matter to them or would inconvenience them is pushed aside and forgotten as being irrelevant. I have sadly even had some close friends who lived in their own little world where I felt like an intruder in their very self-centered life story. This is Agent Nichol. Any advice Gamace gives her obviously doesn't apply to her, because she knows best. Nothing sinks in, nothing latches on. The murder would have been wrapped up right away if not for her unwillingness to be a team player. She can't be on a team, because that would mean she's not the star. Plus she views her mistakes not as her fault but the cause of others, making her view herself as a victim. Could someone please make her a victim, the kind in a body bag with a toe tag? Because seriously, if she's in the next book I don't think I can read it.

Leaving Agent Nichol far far behind and going back to the other characters, an overall trait they all had which was an annoying foible in Still Life was the overuse of patois. Local sayings and even Quebecois swears were scattered throughout the book like pixy dust. Instead of adding flavor and color to the book it seemed forced into the narrative at random moments like we might be on the verge of forgetting the book is set in Quebec so here's a short sharp reminder. The patois didn't come naturally from the narrative, like it should. It felt like a gimmick. Like a mediocre substitute to actually bothering with some worldbuilding. Why would Penny bother to show us the world of Quebec when she could just tell us with a few words? This is where her greenness as an author shows. It's show not tell, not the other way around. Again, my hope is that as she grows she learns more how to develop her story and her world. Right now her world is very two dimensional when what we need and want is three.

Yet, despite all these nagging issues, they could all easily come under the heading of issues experienced by first time writers. They can be fixed in time. The core of her book, the mystery and the life of Jane, these ephemeral things that trip up even experienced writers succeeded here, making me hopeful for the future. But it's Jane's home that captured my imagination the most. I wanted into that house that even her closest friends were barred from so badly that every time there was a delay I almost audibly cried out. For us readers outside Canada we might not get the connection between Jane's house and the Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis. She is beloved in Canada and their answer to Grandma Moses, only with more cats. I was lucky enough to visit Nova Scotia over a decade ago and see her artwork that is on display at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. More importantly I was able to see her house which is situated fully in this Gallery. While I won't spoil the reveal in Still Life, let me say that Maud Lewis and Jane Neal had very similar decorating schemes and I think they would have gotten along marvelously.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Art, Canada, Cats, Chief Inspector Armand Gamace, Grandma Moses, Inspector Lynley, Louise Penny, Maud Lewis, Nathaniel Parker, Nova Scotia, Patois, Quebec, Sookie Stackhouse, Stereotype, Still Life, Three Pines