Friday, August 22, 2014

The Emerald City by J A Beard


Title: The Emerald City
Author: J A Beard
Publisher: J.A. Beard
Rating: WARTY!

This is a rip-off of Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Main character Gail Dorjee is quite literally confined to the Osland school where Internet access is non-existent (except to a chosen few), phones simply don't work, and the boundary wall makes you forget you were trying to escape if you touch it.

There she discovers she has a power to manipulate water, right around the time she discovers that she's a prisoner. She befriends the cowardly student and then...nothing much happens. That's as far as I got (about fifty percent in, very roughly). That's how slowly this novel moves. At this point I was forcing myself to read on and was skipping section after section and decided to call it because it was larded with trope and totally uninteresting to me. Life's too short and this novel is too warty! It gave me nothing to work with and it's not worth it if you have to work so hard for your relaxation and entertainment.