Author: Arwen Elys Dayton
Publisher: Random House
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
This is a fantasy tale, but with a few twists. It's the first in the inevitable series because YA writers are evidently congenitally allergic to writing something new when they can continue to milk the same story. Once in a rare while, a series works, but not when the first novel in the series fails.
This story features Quin, a fifteen year old girl, her cousin Shinobu, and their supposed friend John, all three of whom are in training to become a "Seeker". I have no idea what that is, because it isn't explained in the first third of this novel which was all I could manage to wade through. We join the trio on its final qualification night which is brutal and barbaric. I really didn’t get this. The people who trained them are the ones who are testing them - so why is there a need for a test? Well, because it’s dramatic and Hollywood, but it also makes no sense. These trainers know their trainees. They ought to know if they're ready or not. It makes no sense to make it all hang on one final test!
We learn in chapter two that John and Quin are an item, but it rings a false note. The only attraction which John seems to find in her is her beauty and her growing womanly curves. This was wrong and is yet another example of sorry-assed objectification - and of a fifteen year old girl as well! I know that we’re supposed to believe that she and John are friends - having trained together since before they entered their teens. I know that we’re supposed to believe that they're comrades in arms and have a deep friendship and trust going on, but this isn’t what's made clear. It isn’t what’s stressed. The same issue was applied to Quin's mom, who was not only very 'domesticated', but also has "a beautiful face." Apparently those were her only qualities. Seriously?
What the author comes back to time and time again is the sad cliché of Quin's skin-deep appearance, and nothing else. I'm forced to state outright here that the writer did a really lousy job. Here was a chance to make the couple into real partners, but she failed and this honestly dismays me. Even given what becomes of them it was still a squandered opportunity. Why is it that so many female writers do such a serious disservice to their female characters and choose to betray their gender by rendering women into objets d'art instead of people? Can we not for once get away from the idea that a woman is a thing to be owned and admired instead of simply another human being to be appreciated for her character or something other than her skin? Can we not abandon beauty and the physical and actually talk about what's most important: independence, friendship, loyalty, smarts, companionability, reliability, integrity, empathy, self-sufficiency?
How hard is that? As long as writers continue to, yes, abuse and brainwash women like this, then we will never see things change down the road and young impressionable women will be forced again and again to dwell upon the fact that they are, by the standards of this kind of writing, ugly and worthless if they're not a paragon of beauty and sexuality. Shame on writers who do this, and especially to those who perpetrate this on their own gender.
Another thing which bothered me is how mean and brutal the people are in this book. At one point, Quin deliberately throws a knife at another girl's head, from a concealed location and without any warning just to demonstrate to John (as though he doesn't already know) how fast the girl is at catching it and throwing it back at Quin's head. Actually given how barbaric and soulless the other girl was, I was sorry in the end that Quin missed! At another point, Briac, Quin's father, smashes a pantry door open into her head because she was eavesdropping on his conversation with a visitor. These are not nice people.
Quin & co are training with 'whip swords' which are fluid devices that can change shape, but this story is set in the future, perhaps an alternate future, and there are other weapons, which begs the question as to why the sword is used. Or why they wear cloaks which get in the way of the swords! I know that swords (and cloaks) are a trope part of fantasy stories, ridiculous as that is, and in a story set in the past, swords do make sense, but here in this world they do not. It doesn’t help that after over a hundred pages (out of some 340) I still had no clue whatsoever as to what was going on here, or why there were Seekers, or what they were supposed to be doing. My initial impression was that they were assassins, but other than vague allusions, there was nothing to confirm or deny it.
In the end I couldn't read any more of this. None of it hung together. None of it made sense. I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t like any of the characters. The novel should have been a lot shorter. So where was my incentive to continue? Precisely! It was nowhere! I can't recommend this.
