Rating: WORTHY!
Errata:
"Lizzy makes a comb of her fingers, and runs it through Thomas's tangled her" should be "tangled hair"!
"is not the walls he inspect but the floors" 'inspects, but'
There's something paranormal going on here. The problem is that we never learn what it is! The story begins in a British boys boarding school - a very strict school where the upper class children are brutally pushed towards purity. Those who are not pure in thought and deed are outed by the appearance of smoke and soot from their own bodies - visible signs of falling from grace, which leave almost indelible stains on clothing. You can't hide from your sins in this world, but it wasn't always like this. People just believe it was. Curiously enough, upper crust folks don't seem to have the same problem with sin that the 'lower classes' do.
I was drawn in almost immediately to this idea, but about half way through, the story changed from gripping and enticing to sheer boredom. It suddenly ceased completely to be appealing and became a real chore to keep reading. After the first couple of chapters, which I wasn't that fond of, the story really picked up, and from that point on, I didn't look back until it came to a screeching, grinding halt in London. It never took off again.
There were the usual formatting issues with the Android smart phone crappy Kindle app, which are nothing to do with the publisher or the author. The Kindle app doesn't like drop caps or formatting! Please note that this was an advance review copy so there may be changes which render my comments irrelevant or outdated by the time the published copy arrives.
The author did have a strange way of expressing himself at times, such as in this clause: "...and his look at Julius is like a dog's that has been beaten." Odd (to me at least!), but not disastrous. The story was told in third person, which I prefer, but the tense seemed to shift between present and past, which was annoying, and between multiple first person PoVs in some scattered chapters, which was more annoying! I didn't get the point of this, especially since it's a real distraction from the story. Other those issues, it was easy to follow, so non-Brit readers should have no trouble with this one, if they don't mind the occasional obscure reference, such as "...breaks open the coach like a conker," or the use of 'flannel' instead of washcloth.
A conker is a horse chestnut seed. The seeds are large, like the chestnuts you roast at Christmas time, but they're more rounded and a beautiful, rich brown color. British kids drill a small hole through the center and suspend it on a string. The "conker" then then be used to hit another such conker held by a second kid. This proceeds by turns until one or other of the conkers is cracked, thereby rendering victory to the intact conker, which can go on to other contests. British kids are weird, what can I say?!
There was one other oddity which struck me. Maybe other readers won't care about it, and I can't say it's a problem, but it just seemed odd to me, so I mention it because my blog is about writing as well as reading. Here's the exchange, between a servant and the young lady of the house:
"He looks at one as though he means to search one. Down to one's petticoats. Strip one of all secrets. It isn't a pleasant look."
But Lizzy only shrugs. "I don't mind. I haven't got nothing to hide."
I have no idea how servants spoke back then, but it struck me as odd that Lizzy was so grammatically correct and "upper crust" in employing the term "one" when she begins speaking, but then descends to what might be termed stereotypical "servant speak" by employing "haven't got nothing". Maybe this is perfectly fine, but it sounded weirdly contradictory to me.
The best thing about this novel initially, was that it kept moving into new territory, each marked by a new part in the story. We started in part one in the school, and then in part two, we moved to Lady Naylor's country residence for the Christmas "hols", where Thomas and Charley, the main male characters, learned interesting things about the smoke, and met Livia, the other main character. Soon they had to move on and not everyone wanted them to get where they needed to go, which was London. The journey down to London, part three, was fun, but as soon as they arrived, the story came to a shuddering halt. There was page after page of literally nothing happening, and it became truly, deadeningly boring.
Normally I would abandon a novel at this point, but I was really curious about the smoke and soot, so I pressed on, only to meet disappointment after disappointment. We learned nothing about the smoke - not how or why it arose, not why some people were immune to it, not where it came from or how it might be beaten. Not even, really, what one of the mysterious protagonists hoped to do with her secret plan. Instead, the story simply fizzled out in bleak inevitability, and it was not even remotely interesting. I was very disappointed after a truly promising start. It was like the story simply gave up! It felt to me like the author ran out of ideas or never planned on resolving anything in the first place. This is the main reason why I cannot rate this as a worthy read, but it is not the only one.
I am not a fan of first person PoV. It's very limiting voice as this author admitted by bouncing in and out of it. For me, it's typically nauseating, and especially so in young adult stories. Some authors can carry it, but the chances of failure are multiplied by the number of first person voices there are. In this novel, as I mentioned, there were many such voices, and they were completely random. In the end, they bogged down the story and stretched it out tediously. I quickly began skipping them because they contributed nothing aside from irritation, and they reduced the story to a tedious walking pace. Completely by-passing them caused me no problems in following the story - none at all. That speaks volumes!
This novel was a slow read to begin with, and it would have been improved enormously if all of the first person chapters had been deleted. It would have improved significantly further if parts four, five, and six had been condensed to a half dozen chapters instead of endlessly dragging on for interminable page after endless page. I can't recommend this one at all, not unless you want to read the first three parts and then move on to something else. This is actually a classic illustration of why I don't do stars. A novel to me is either worth reading or it isn't. I can't rate one two-fifths or four-fifths worth reading because then I'd be recommending this one and that wouldn't be honest! This was not a worthwhile read and I resent the time I wasted on it.
