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secre's review
3.0
Whilst this series started well, it fell into numerous traps of young adult writing in the second and third instalment and ended up being somewhat of a disappointment. In Marking Time I was pleasantly impressed with the writing, the characters and the world building; indeed I thought I’d found a new author to follow. It is undoubtedly fairly easy reading, but the merging of science and fantasy is really quite neatly done, allowing the world building to be both more realistic and detailed. Reading, I could almost see the corridors and dark alleyways of a modern school and Victorian London both. The entire thing is really evocative and propels you into the times and the places.
The characterisations are exceptionally well portrayed and Saira makes for a strong female lead, whilst the issues of gender in the Victorian ages are cleverly adhered to. The cast of characters is quite reasonable, and each of them is individualistic without being caricatured. I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Saira’s grandmother and Mr Shaw, both of whom are wonderfully strong characters in and of their own right.
It’s well paced and the narrative never quite went where I thought it would, the characters leap off the page and I felt truly invested in where this tale was going. Even with the split between future and past, events get murky yet not overwhelmingly confusing. Most importantly for me perhaps is that the underlying love story isn’t shoved in your face; it’s there, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a single strand rather than the rope that ties everything together. Personally, I’d have ‘shipped’ a completely different couple than the author, but that’s very much down to personal reading.
Things started going wrong once we hit Tempting Fate however and whilst it picked up in the final third, the first two thirds lag hugely and the novel simply doesn’t seem to know where it is going. When combined with a lot of filler and vomit worthy romance gunge, this was a distinctly disappointing read considering how much I enjoyed the first in the series. When it finally gets moving, it becomes a rollercoaster of events and emotions, it’s just a pity it takes so damn long to get to the point where it’s interesting.
I was also disappointed that so few awesome characters are used here; you are more or less down to Saira, Archer and Ringo for huge swathes of the novel. Out of the three, Ringo wins on interest levels as Saira has gone ditzy with love and romance and bleh and Archer is too busy being the handsome love interest to be interesting. Tom is brought in briefly, but disappointed me with how quickly his involvement was brought to a close. Other brilliant characters like Millicent, Mr Shaw, Ava and Adam are utterly sidelined and that’s a real shame.
Whilst it’s good to see a strong female protagonist and all that jazz, when you have her going soppy eyed you need a better supporting cast. The final third took the hint and played with old and new characters well, but before that it was as though no one else really existed, and the novel as a whole suffers for it. As an aside, I’d love to see a strong female protagonist who doesn’t spend swathes of time goggly eyed for a boy, but hey. The author managed to straddle a decent line in the first novel, but veered too heavily toward the love interest here for me and it became tiresome to say the least.
Changing Nature was far more gripping than the second for several reasons; firstly, more characters were used here, meaning that the focus wasn't eternally on the romance sap that took over the second book. Secondly, the plot was far tighter, the pacing far more efficient and the novel seemed to know where it was going from the very beginning. It generally felt as though it was a book that was held together far better and allowed for more in-depth character development and exploration.
The dabbling around in different time zones is quite interesting and April White picked an interesting period of history in which to set this. Her detailed knowledge of events that I had no awareness of really do bring the time and the place to life. I have to admit, I can't quite work out what real damage this time split was to cause in the current time stream, but it made for entertaining reading regardless. The focus of the novels has very much become going back in time and fixing the bits that other Clockers have upset and whilst this is interesting, I would have enjoyed more of a focus on the present day and the Family politics. The modern day politics seem to take somewhat of a backseat in this instalment, and we don't actually see much of the interesting stuff because we're following the key characters back in time.
The writing style periodically becomes incredibly infantile though and it sticks out like a sore thumb from what is otherwise a well drawn together narrative. When they start talking about the poopy corpse for example, it forces me out of what is going on to shake my head in bewilderment. Many of the popular culture references could also easily have been left out, and would in turn ensure the book wouldn't sound out of date as quickly as it is going to. I suppose the author is trying to orientate the characters in the 'real world', however personally I would prefer it to be a fantasy world and therefore doesn't need references to Buffy, Harry Potter and the likes to make it relevant.
I do wish the author would knock it off with the overly sentimental love story sap though; it gets tedious, boring and increasingly cringe worthy as these books go on. I get it, our lead character is in love with a hundred year old vampire, now shut up and get on with the story. I don't need to read about how much she wants to rub herself over his knuckles or any other incredibly vomit worthy sections where she is mooning or horny. It's shoved in your face way too much and is the main reason for me knocking a star off here. I found this could be said for some of the other sentimental aspects of the books as well, and whilst I only really noticed it here, looking back I can see the heavy-handedness elsewhere as well. This is particularly noticeable in scenes where friends are like brothers or parent-child relationships. It's just ladled on a little bit thick.
Whilst I have quite enjoyed these novels, I'm not sure if I'm going to go out of my way to purchase the next two however. If the romance aspects of it weren't shoved quite so forcefully down my throat, I would be far more tempted. As it stands, they aren't books that I would go out of my way to avoid, but I don't think I'll make a special effort to locate the follow ups either when all is said and done.
The characterisations are exceptionally well portrayed and Saira makes for a strong female lead, whilst the issues of gender in the Victorian ages are cleverly adhered to. The cast of characters is quite reasonable, and each of them is individualistic without being caricatured. I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Saira’s grandmother and Mr Shaw, both of whom are wonderfully strong characters in and of their own right.
It’s well paced and the narrative never quite went where I thought it would, the characters leap off the page and I felt truly invested in where this tale was going. Even with the split between future and past, events get murky yet not overwhelmingly confusing. Most importantly for me perhaps is that the underlying love story isn’t shoved in your face; it’s there, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a single strand rather than the rope that ties everything together. Personally, I’d have ‘shipped’ a completely different couple than the author, but that’s very much down to personal reading.
Things started going wrong once we hit Tempting Fate however and whilst it picked up in the final third, the first two thirds lag hugely and the novel simply doesn’t seem to know where it is going. When combined with a lot of filler and vomit worthy romance gunge, this was a distinctly disappointing read considering how much I enjoyed the first in the series. When it finally gets moving, it becomes a rollercoaster of events and emotions, it’s just a pity it takes so damn long to get to the point where it’s interesting.
I was also disappointed that so few awesome characters are used here; you are more or less down to Saira, Archer and Ringo for huge swathes of the novel. Out of the three, Ringo wins on interest levels as Saira has gone ditzy with love and romance and bleh and Archer is too busy being the handsome love interest to be interesting. Tom is brought in briefly, but disappointed me with how quickly his involvement was brought to a close. Other brilliant characters like Millicent, Mr Shaw, Ava and Adam are utterly sidelined and that’s a real shame.
Whilst it’s good to see a strong female protagonist and all that jazz, when you have her going soppy eyed you need a better supporting cast. The final third took the hint and played with old and new characters well, but before that it was as though no one else really existed, and the novel as a whole suffers for it. As an aside, I’d love to see a strong female protagonist who doesn’t spend swathes of time goggly eyed for a boy, but hey. The author managed to straddle a decent line in the first novel, but veered too heavily toward the love interest here for me and it became tiresome to say the least.
Changing Nature was far more gripping than the second for several reasons; firstly, more characters were used here, meaning that the focus wasn't eternally on the romance sap that took over the second book. Secondly, the plot was far tighter, the pacing far more efficient and the novel seemed to know where it was going from the very beginning. It generally felt as though it was a book that was held together far better and allowed for more in-depth character development and exploration.
The dabbling around in different time zones is quite interesting and April White picked an interesting period of history in which to set this. Her detailed knowledge of events that I had no awareness of really do bring the time and the place to life. I have to admit, I can't quite work out what real damage this time split was to cause in the current time stream, but it made for entertaining reading regardless. The focus of the novels has very much become going back in time and fixing the bits that other Clockers have upset and whilst this is interesting, I would have enjoyed more of a focus on the present day and the Family politics. The modern day politics seem to take somewhat of a backseat in this instalment, and we don't actually see much of the interesting stuff because we're following the key characters back in time.
The writing style periodically becomes incredibly infantile though and it sticks out like a sore thumb from what is otherwise a well drawn together narrative. When they start talking about the poopy corpse for example, it forces me out of what is going on to shake my head in bewilderment. Many of the popular culture references could also easily have been left out, and would in turn ensure the book wouldn't sound out of date as quickly as it is going to. I suppose the author is trying to orientate the characters in the 'real world', however personally I would prefer it to be a fantasy world and therefore doesn't need references to Buffy, Harry Potter and the likes to make it relevant.
I do wish the author would knock it off with the overly sentimental love story sap though; it gets tedious, boring and increasingly cringe worthy as these books go on. I get it, our lead character is in love with a hundred year old vampire, now shut up and get on with the story. I don't need to read about how much she wants to rub herself over his knuckles or any other incredibly vomit worthy sections where she is mooning or horny. It's shoved in your face way too much and is the main reason for me knocking a star off here. I found this could be said for some of the other sentimental aspects of the books as well, and whilst I only really noticed it here, looking back I can see the heavy-handedness elsewhere as well. This is particularly noticeable in scenes where friends are like brothers or parent-child relationships. It's just ladled on a little bit thick.
Whilst I have quite enjoyed these novels, I'm not sure if I'm going to go out of my way to purchase the next two however. If the romance aspects of it weren't shoved quite so forcefully down my throat, I would be far more tempted. As it stands, they aren't books that I would go out of my way to avoid, but I don't think I'll make a special effort to locate the follow ups either when all is said and done.
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