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15 oeuvres 91 utilisateurs 3 critiques

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Comprend les noms: Christina McMullen

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Œuvres de Christina McMullen

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female
Nationalité
USA

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Harry Potter was a normal kid, except for this scar. Ellie Whitmore is an ordinary girl, except she is more than six feet tall and has white spots on her otherwise dark complexion. Yep. She is an alien for sure. Something in her genetic code will save galactic civilization. And let us not forget the sexy alien assassin/bodyguard. Readable. YA by the numbers.
 
Signalé
Tom-e | Mar 9, 2024 |
I think it's only fair to warn you from the start that this review isn't quite what it seems. In fact it's an experiment, the idea of which is to see whether I can give you a clear picture of this book without actually telling you anything about it. What prompted the idea is that Kind of Like Life is virtually impossible to write a normal review of; you can't really describe much of it without committing horrendous spoilers - the book's own blurb covers only about the first fifth or so and doesn't give you even the remotest idea of the story because, where the blurb ends, the plot then goes up a gear - and up, and up. There's also its genre: not just YA because I reckon people of any age will enjoy unpeeling its nested layers; and not science fiction either because the 'science' in it is more like an art student's idea of science.
   So I thought of trying this experiment instead. It's a pretty original idea, you've got to admit - even readers reviewing books by the likes of, say, Philip K Dick never thought of doing anything like this, and a lot of his books (Ubik, just to pick a random example) are as tricky to review...
   Mm, I don't know. We're not even halfway through this yet and I'm having second thoughts already. I wish I hadn't mentioned P K Dick because many of his novels are also concerned with the nature of reality: is the world you think you're living in real, or is it some kind of illusion (a dream or hallucination maybe, or even something more sinister) and how can you tell? Well, what's just crossed my mind is that, although this is a clever idea for a book review, is it too clever, too good to be true - could there be more going on here than I'd realised as well? I mean, where did this whole 'experiment' idea come from in the first place? Think about it: why should I try to persuade you to read someone else's novel - it doesn't make sense. Has someone been messing with my head, sort of tiptoeing about in it, tinkering with the wiring in there (which would explain one or two other oddities I've noticed, like a certain song by The Smiths which has been going round and round in my brain on a loop ever since I 'had' this review-as-experiment idea?) But who? And why? Someone who's trying to get me to write an inventive review of her book, that's who: faced with the problem of how to get a few decent reviews, this author has mulled it over (or, I suppose, mcmulled it over) and came up with the clever idea of a review-as-experiment, then telepathically projected it into my mind...
   Hang on though, telepathy isn't possible in real life, only in stories - so where does that leave me and what I thought was 'the world'? I'm left (as usual) with the suspicion that there must be more to all this than meets the eye...kind of like the book this review is about in fact. And kind of, now that I come to think of it, like life...
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
justlurking | Jul 4, 2021 |
Seth has been an Observer for less than two hundred years (still wet behind the ears really) and the events about to engulf him in the Midwestern town of Blackbird may be more than an inexperienced supernatural can handle. First Abbey, his Guardian, suddenly quits; then Amara, the love of his life (or rather, of his former life as a mortal, hence the book's title) shows up again after an absence of a century and a half - and she's very bad news, believe me. Meanwhile, and most worryingly of all, there has been a resurgence in Discordant activity in the area...
   The Discordant - vampires, demons, sprites, harpies, witches and far worse - are the representatives of Chaos and what attracts them are 'lost' souls, ordinary humans sunk in despondency. There's been a lot of that, too, in Blackbird in recent decades: once prosperous, by the turn of the millennium it was already in full decline and the Discordant hordes have been homing in on the prevailing gloom in ever-increasing numbers. Holding them at bay - just - are the forces of Order. Order's Observers, Guardians and Warriors are supernaturals too, but humans lifted out of the Cycle of ordinary mortal experience, the endless round of birth, life, death and rebirth. This is a worldwide, perhaps universal, battle - not a struggle between good and evil though, but between Order and Chaos, harmony and discord.
   It's a good read too - the clear-as-day prose moves along smartly, and with a nice turn of phrase here and there: "...he left me just enough bippity to keep the humans from knowin' my true form, but no boppity boo for anythin' else..." That was Bogie by the way, one of the more likeable demons you're likely to meet reading urban fantasy; and here he is again a few pages later: "...'Shut up!' Louise snapped, tilting her head to the side, which made her look a lot like a dog who just heard his favorite squeaky toy..." All the characters are similarly well-drawn and one thing I particularly liked is that each chapter is written, first-person, from the viewpoint of one of three of them (Seth, Des or, yes, Bogie) so you get a slight overlap and glimpse some of the action through two different pairs of eyes - nicely done.
   Past Life Strife is the first of a series and, on this evidence, I'd say there's more than enough boppity boo left to make the rest as entertaining (you definitely get the feeling that the battle for Blackbird has only just begun).
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
justlurking | Jul 4, 2021 |

Statistiques

Œuvres
15
Membres
91
Popularité
#204,136
Évaluation
½ 3.7
Critiques
3
ISBN
7

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