H. G. Parry

This was a DNF. I started this as an audiobook three different times, and each listen only lasted an hour and a half to two hours into a 20 hour story. The main reason that I DNFed this book is that every time I started this book I couldn’t remember anything I had already listened to. This is because so much of this book is telling not showing. At least in the beginning there is so much set up for who the characters are what they’re doing, etc. It’s almost never ending. Even now, though I have listened to those first two hours multiple times I still cannot tell you anything that happened. I’m not saying this book was bad I’m just saying it wasn’t for me as an audiobook.… (plus d'informations)

Biddy has grown up on the magical, disappearing island of Hy-Brasil with her guardian, a mage named Rowan, and his familiar Hutchincroft. However, magic is fading from the world, and Rowan, who has been pursuing a Robin Hood-like existence of stealing bits of magic from the remaining powerful magicians and giving it to the common people, is now in grave danger. Biddy has always wanted to venture out into the "real world," but she knows nothing of its dangers -- and she's soon to learn that maybe Rowan hasn't told her everything she needs to know...

I very much enjoyed this coming-of-age fantasy, with its strong characters and well-developed magic system. Would it be possible for me to go live on Hy-Brasil now, do you think? I would adore it. Recommended.… (plus d'informations)

2.5⭐️
Had high hopes of this giving me the same kind of buzz I experienced when reading Jasper Fforde’s brilliantly bonkers and wryly humorous Thursday Next series. Sadly, despite the appealing (if not entirely original) premise of literary characters being read out into life by one, perhaps more, mysteriously gifted individuals - consequently threatening the existence of the real world - this fell short for me.

Pros: fascinating alternative world, filled out pretty well; some exciting story peaks; fun is had with a number of fictional characters, mostly Dickensian or Victorian, many of whom readers would kill to meet.

Cons: unlikeable narrator (his bitter, repetitive and petty carping about his brother rapidly grew very tedious); a few potentially excellent side characters were criminally underused (especially Sherlock Holmes and the mother of the two main characters); there were a number of distracting typos; and the whole thing would have benefited from a good, hard trimming. Often unnecessarily wordy, with strangely flat, even cringe-inducing phrasing; and too often the dialogue just went on and on, round and round in circles, or didn’t ring true.

All in all, I found myself frequently irritated while reading but pressed on because I was interested enough to see what happened in the end. Mostly though, it’s just made me want to read Fforde all over again.… (plus d'informations)