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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
Terrifying on many levels and pretty graphic. Fascinating plot and addictive. Great characters. Some fantasy, but one of the things that makes it so creepy is just how believable it is.
A mature read for older teenagers. I'm not really sure what I think of The Marbury Lens. I enjoyed it, and it still has me thinking, but I would have enjoyed at least a few more aspects of the story explained before its conclusion.
Holy shit, alright first of all halfway through I was gonna give it a five starts. Then it started getting a tiny bit; strange. Writing wise. Turns out, the author is a male. Now nothing wrong but we all know the usual outcome with male authors.
The plot line is amazing and has so many potentials, I loved it. Nickie relationship with Jack however seems very "the dream girl I somehow would believes me with absolute no evidence whatsoever and would also forgive me for every single one of my mistakes" so, very unrealistic.
I in particular absolutely adores Seth's story, the additional storylines for him is wonderful, magnificent. I feel connected to Seth in a way and I mourn for him.
So if the 'relationship' and visions of what a woman is were to be more realistic and not dream woman male perspective vise this would be an easy 5 stars.
(Ps, my feminist activists side really really hate the way woman was portrayed in this aka Nickie and Rachel, I finally know now why so many people tend to avoid most male authors except ones that they already knew about)
The plot line is amazing and has so many potentials, I loved it. Nickie relationship with Jack however seems very "the dream girl I somehow would believes me with absolute no evidence whatsoever and would also forgive me for every single one of my mistakes" so, very unrealistic.
I in particular absolutely adores Seth's story, the additional storylines for him is wonderful, magnificent. I feel connected to Seth in a way and I mourn for him.
So if the 'relationship' and visions of what a woman is were to be more realistic and not dream woman male perspective vise this would be an easy 5 stars.
(Ps, my feminist activists side really really hate the way woman was portrayed in this aka Nickie and Rachel, I finally know now why so many people tend to avoid most male authors except ones that they already knew about)
I was really looking forward to reading The Marbury Lens after learning what the story was about. Unfortunately it turned out to be a pretty big disappointment for so many reasons.
I'm going to start with the positive stuff so I feel less like a jerk, because I really wanted to like this book. The story is interesting and more original than what I've seen lately. You can think of this novel as being dystopian, although we're not dealing with the future of North America here or something, we're more or less dealing with another dimension. I liked a lot of the great ideas Smith put into this other dimension and I found Jack's intense need to constantly go back there despite how horrible it was to be believable and compelling.
I liked that Smith wasn't afraid to write about topics that aren't very happy, but this is where we start going downhill.
So the story starts out with Jack going to his best friend's house for a party. He and Conner have been buds since they were kids and soon they were going to London together for a vacation. Everything is typical, drunk teens everywhere doing drugs and all that. Then suddenly things take a nasty turn when, after drunkenly leaving the party, Jack gets kidnapped by a man named Freddie Hovarth. It's obvious after a bit that Freddie has done this before and has likely killed his victims after raping them. Jack is fortunate enough to escape. He tells no one except Conner who, having the enlarged ego that he does, decides it'd be great to screw with Freddie Horvath.
Of course it goes horribly and Freddie ends up dead. The boys don't get caught, instead they leave for London and that's where Jack discovers the Marbury Lens. Before they get to London though, you get one more incident of an older man being extremely inappropriate when he mistakes Jack as being gay. This, topped with constant teenage boy talk that goes something like "Dude you're so gay" or "You are such a faggot" started to make me feel pretty uncomfortable about the general attitude towards being gay. Sure, Conner and Jack aren't shy about letting the other know how much they love each other as friends, but did this book really need two incidents of older gay men being predators? One would've sufficed.
But going back to the attitude of these boys, I understand the need to really get at the voices of your characters, but these two got annoying so fast as teen boy stereotypes. Jack cursed so much in his own head that I got sick of it less than halfway through. What made it all the more annoying was that he was always repeating the same stuff, "Fuck you, Jack", "Fuck you, Freddie" etc. I get him having trauma, but it could've been added on in ways that wouldn't be nearly as annoying to read.
On top of that, they seem to not really care about anyone else by each other to the point that they come off as jerks. Jack was raised by what seems to be a loving pair of grandparents, but for reasons unknown he doesn't care about them and is unnecessarily bitter towards them just because his own parents didn't want him. I get being bitter, but to not genuinely develop love for your loving surrogate parents is just weird. Somewhere in the middle of the book he thinks about this and says something like (I no longer have the book) "Stella and Wynn may as well have been furniture or wallpaper". Dude seriously, ungrateful much? And you have no real sense of Conner's family life so we won't even bother trying to consider how uncaring he might be of them.
Although to add to the weirdness when both boys go to London they fall for two girls who also happen to be best friends, and here's where we get into more of the issues I had with this book. I think I might put it down in list form:
-Nickie is extremely accepting of the fact that Jack more or less acts like a crazy person. His behavior in the novel could be seen as a metaphor for drug abuse (addiction to going to Marbury, being physically ill all the time, being secretive, blacking out, mood swings, etc) so as another character in the book you would easily assume that this is exactly what the issue is. But instead of running in the other direction she just about instantly falls in love with him.
-Nickie has no personality and this is made worse by the fact that Smith, for some reason, used very little adverbs when writing her dialogue but wrote a lot of emotion into Jack and Conner's lines so by comparison Nickie is almost a robot. Or cardboard. Or a cardboard robot. But what I mean by no personality is that we know nothing of her interests, just general facts about her family life.
-She also has this weird tendency to talk a little too profoundly, saying things like "I think you are beautiful" when Jack asks her what she thinks about some subject or other. I think overall she feels like what a boy would imagine to be the perfect girl.
-If Nickie is a cardboard robot though, her bff Rachel may as well be a mannequin. We know she's pretty and... that's it? She and Conner fall in love within like a week, only a few days shorter than the time it takes for Nickie and Jack to be deeply in love.
Other aspects of Smith's writing felt awkward and disjointed. Throughout the book we got this side story of a ghost named Seth. As a ghost in Marbury he helps Jack heal from wounds and in the process Jack learns all about Seth's life. The way he chooses to tell us is- I've used this word so many times already- weird. Like, you've got a group of teenagers laughing at a pub and talking about themselves then suddenly Jack's like "I have a story to tell about a boy" and then suddenly SETH'S STORY shows up on the page and we go through it from Seth's POV. (Side note, the writing from his POV was great. I liked Seth quite a bit.) We'd learn a bit about Seth but then it'd stop and we'd continue with Jack's life. Then later Nickie would ask "Can you tell me the ending to that story about that boy?" "Sure" Jack would say and then SETH'S STORY shows up again awkwardly. But would the story be told then? Nope, so again later in the book Nickie would ask "Can I know how it ends now?" "Okay"- SETH'S STORY. So the overall feeling was that one story kept interrupting the other one and the segue ways between them weren't remotely smooth.
I think I've gone on about this book enough now. It's not that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I think they'd have to be very forgiving of the writing style to like it. As it is, I likely won't read the sequel, but who knows? It might run more smoothly.
I'm going to start with the positive stuff so I feel less like a jerk, because I really wanted to like this book. The story is interesting and more original than what I've seen lately. You can think of this novel as being dystopian, although we're not dealing with the future of North America here or something, we're more or less dealing with another dimension. I liked a lot of the great ideas Smith put into this other dimension and I found Jack's intense need to constantly go back there despite how horrible it was to be believable and compelling.
I liked that Smith wasn't afraid to write about topics that aren't very happy, but this is where we start going downhill.
So the story starts out with Jack going to his best friend's house for a party. He and Conner have been buds since they were kids and soon they were going to London together for a vacation. Everything is typical, drunk teens everywhere doing drugs and all that. Then suddenly things take a nasty turn when, after drunkenly leaving the party, Jack gets kidnapped by a man named Freddie Hovarth. It's obvious after a bit that Freddie has done this before and has likely killed his victims after raping them. Jack is fortunate enough to escape. He tells no one except Conner who, having the enlarged ego that he does, decides it'd be great to screw with Freddie Horvath.
Of course it goes horribly and Freddie ends up dead. The boys don't get caught, instead they leave for London and that's where Jack discovers the Marbury Lens. Before they get to London though, you get one more incident of an older man being extremely inappropriate when he mistakes Jack as being gay. This, topped with constant teenage boy talk that goes something like "Dude you're so gay" or "You are such a faggot" started to make me feel pretty uncomfortable about the general attitude towards being gay. Sure, Conner and Jack aren't shy about letting the other know how much they love each other as friends, but did this book really need two incidents of older gay men being predators? One would've sufficed.
But going back to the attitude of these boys, I understand the need to really get at the voices of your characters, but these two got annoying so fast as teen boy stereotypes. Jack cursed so much in his own head that I got sick of it less than halfway through. What made it all the more annoying was that he was always repeating the same stuff, "Fuck you, Jack", "Fuck you, Freddie" etc. I get him having trauma, but it could've been added on in ways that wouldn't be nearly as annoying to read.
On top of that, they seem to not really care about anyone else by each other to the point that they come off as jerks. Jack was raised by what seems to be a loving pair of grandparents, but for reasons unknown he doesn't care about them and is unnecessarily bitter towards them just because his own parents didn't want him. I get being bitter, but to not genuinely develop love for your loving surrogate parents is just weird. Somewhere in the middle of the book he thinks about this and says something like (I no longer have the book) "Stella and Wynn may as well have been furniture or wallpaper". Dude seriously, ungrateful much? And you have no real sense of Conner's family life so we won't even bother trying to consider how uncaring he might be of them.
Although to add to the weirdness when both boys go to London they fall for two girls who also happen to be best friends, and here's where we get into more of the issues I had with this book. I think I might put it down in list form:
-Nickie is extremely accepting of the fact that Jack more or less acts like a crazy person. His behavior in the novel could be seen as a metaphor for drug abuse (addiction to going to Marbury, being physically ill all the time, being secretive, blacking out, mood swings, etc) so as another character in the book you would easily assume that this is exactly what the issue is. But instead of running in the other direction she just about instantly falls in love with him.
-Nickie has no personality and this is made worse by the fact that Smith, for some reason, used very little adverbs when writing her dialogue but wrote a lot of emotion into Jack and Conner's lines so by comparison Nickie is almost a robot. Or cardboard. Or a cardboard robot. But what I mean by no personality is that we know nothing of her interests, just general facts about her family life.
-She also has this weird tendency to talk a little too profoundly, saying things like "I think you are beautiful" when Jack asks her what she thinks about some subject or other. I think overall she feels like what a boy would imagine to be the perfect girl.
-If Nickie is a cardboard robot though, her bff Rachel may as well be a mannequin. We know she's pretty and... that's it? She and Conner fall in love within like a week, only a few days shorter than the time it takes for Nickie and Jack to be deeply in love.
Other aspects of Smith's writing felt awkward and disjointed. Throughout the book we got this side story of a ghost named Seth. As a ghost in Marbury he helps Jack heal from wounds and in the process Jack learns all about Seth's life. The way he chooses to tell us is- I've used this word so many times already- weird. Like, you've got a group of teenagers laughing at a pub and talking about themselves then suddenly Jack's like "I have a story to tell about a boy" and then suddenly SETH'S STORY shows up on the page and we go through it from Seth's POV. (Side note, the writing from his POV was great. I liked Seth quite a bit.) We'd learn a bit about Seth but then it'd stop and we'd continue with Jack's life. Then later Nickie would ask "Can you tell me the ending to that story about that boy?" "Sure" Jack would say and then SETH'S STORY shows up again awkwardly. But would the story be told then? Nope, so again later in the book Nickie would ask "Can I know how it ends now?" "Okay"- SETH'S STORY. So the overall feeling was that one story kept interrupting the other one and the segue ways between them weren't remotely smooth.
I think I've gone on about this book enough now. It's not that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I think they'd have to be very forgiving of the writing style to like it. As it is, I likely won't read the sequel, but who knows? It might run more smoothly.
Artless and unoriginal homophobia, 0 stars. Do not read this there are so many better books out there PLEASE.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault
Kid gets raped by a serial killer (implied), then is sexually assaulted on his flight to England by a man who thinks he's gay. No homo jokes galore. Proceed with caution.
I wasn't going to write a review, because I didn't want to linger any longer on this book than I needed to, but then I decided that it had squicked me out enough that some revenge would feel nice.
Fair warning, I'll use strong and gross language (not swearing, just like, anatomical words, if you get me) because... that's what the book was about, basically.
Three words to describe this book: misogyny, testosterone, sex.
I don't get it. I just don't get it. I met with this phenomenon back when I read Fated and some of the problems of that genuinely squicky book ("squicky" is the best adjective I have for this, okay) apply here, but SO MUCH MORE. I literally don't understand what it is about those male authors who are just so fixated on flipping SEX that it overpowers and permeates EVERYTHING. I am using TOO MANY CAPS and too many italics but I don't care because that's what books like this bring out of me: unnecessary intensifiers. Because that's what it feels like reading the things.
Everything is about getting a woman to sleep with you. Everything is male anatomy. Male anatomy. If I had to read the word "crotch" again I was going to break a window. Actually, there were a lot of things that happened so often I wanted to break a whole factory's worth of windows.
Look, here's my main issue: this hyper-masculine fixation on male sexuality/naughty bits - perpetual nakedness, obsession with sex with women, virginity being something to be ashamed of, etc. - was so strongly juxtaposed against making dang sure that THESE MANLY, F-BOMB-LADEN, PENIS-HAVING MEN ARE NOT GAY. It! Was! Infuriating! Unnecessary! Pointless! If Jack and Conner had one more conversation that didn't end with or at least contain essentially a "no homo" moment, I was literally going to throw the book. I really don't know why I didn't at some point. I felt like it.
It was like the author read Blood Meridian, decided to adapt it into some unexplained alternate universe thing, and added more f-bombs. Except I still liked BM more because there was no "lol ur so gay" or "here are my emotions, but I'm not gay" going on. It's just... no matter where you come from, it was obnoxious. Anger-inducing, tbh. I haven't even touched on how the book treats women. If you know me you know I don't worry too much over the state of women in most given books but this was just... nauseating.
People talk about female characters just being there to give the male main more development, but I have almost /never/ read such a glaring perpetrator as this book. Nickie is the only female (besides Jack's grandmother, who gets like, two scenes) named, and she has NO PURPOSE OR PERSONALITY beyond giving Jack sexual tension and being someone to talk to. If you took out the sex part, a pet would have served the same function, and it would have been better because maybe the pet would have merited a personality. But no, Nickie's just there so we can all rest assured that Jack isn't gay, and so Jack has someone to cry on/abuse, and so she can tell the readers that Jack is a very strong, complicated, appealing guy, because we'd never guess it from the actual text. (Hannah basically serves the same purpose, except she has even LESS to her besides having sex with Seth, which, since they're FOURTEEN/FIFTEEN, is genuinely CREEPY, no matter if this in the 1800s.)
I still really feel confused about what the almost-rape in the beginning of the book served. It had at least 75 pages and yet nothing came of it. It's a serious, awful topic and it was just shoved into the beginning of the book to... I don't know, advance the plot. Gross. So gross. Please stop. Honestly I was hoping it WOULD be for something, because guys getting raped is so rarely discussed, and I wanted the book to HAVE that, to explore it - but no. No. Instead we just get... sex, gay panic, and f-bombs.
I wanted to like this book. It's been sitting on my shelf for years after I stopped reading the first time - too much swearing for me then, no doubt - but I read it for a reading challenge, and I was determined to get through it. And it starts off promising, continues to have a bit of promise throughout, even though it does have way too much swearing and way too much sex. But just... ugh.
Some two-star books I feel comfortable reccing to someone with different tastes than myself - I get that different tastes exist and that I am not the audience for every book, and that every book has its audience - but I don't want to rec this one, not to anyone. (Especially not its YA audience. Gross. SO GROSS. STOP. THIS IS AN ADULT-THEMED BOOK.) Two stars for the promising premise and for the admittedly effective prose, when it's not swearing or waving codpieces, but it's a zero-star book in my heart.
Fair warning, I'll use strong and gross language (not swearing, just like, anatomical words, if you get me) because... that's what the book was about, basically.
Three words to describe this book: misogyny, testosterone, sex.
I don't get it. I just don't get it. I met with this phenomenon back when I read Fated and some of the problems of that genuinely squicky book ("squicky" is the best adjective I have for this, okay) apply here, but SO MUCH MORE. I literally don't understand what it is about those male authors who are just so fixated on flipping SEX that it overpowers and permeates EVERYTHING. I am using TOO MANY CAPS and too many italics but I don't care because that's what books like this bring out of me: unnecessary intensifiers. Because that's what it feels like reading the things.
Everything is about getting a woman to sleep with you. Everything is male anatomy. Male anatomy. If I had to read the word "crotch" again I was going to break a window. Actually, there were a lot of things that happened so often I wanted to break a whole factory's worth of windows.
Look, here's my main issue: this hyper-masculine fixation on male sexuality/naughty bits - perpetual nakedness, obsession with sex with women, virginity being something to be ashamed of, etc. - was so strongly juxtaposed against making dang sure that THESE MANLY, F-BOMB-LADEN, PENIS-HAVING MEN ARE NOT GAY. It! Was! Infuriating! Unnecessary! Pointless! If Jack and Conner had one more conversation that didn't end with or at least contain essentially a "no homo" moment, I was literally going to throw the book. I really don't know why I didn't at some point. I felt like it.
It was like the author read Blood Meridian, decided to adapt it into some unexplained alternate universe thing, and added more f-bombs. Except I still liked BM more because there was no "lol ur so gay" or "here are my emotions, but I'm not gay" going on. It's just... no matter where you come from, it was obnoxious. Anger-inducing, tbh. I haven't even touched on how the book treats women. If you know me you know I don't worry too much over the state of women in most given books but this was just... nauseating.
People talk about female characters just being there to give the male main more development, but I have almost /never/ read such a glaring perpetrator as this book. Nickie is the only female (besides Jack's grandmother, who gets like, two scenes) named, and she has NO PURPOSE OR PERSONALITY beyond giving Jack sexual tension and being someone to talk to. If you took out the sex part, a pet would have served the same function, and it would have been better because maybe the pet would have merited a personality. But no, Nickie's just there so we can all rest assured that Jack isn't gay, and so Jack has someone to cry on/abuse, and so she can tell the readers that Jack is a very strong, complicated, appealing guy, because we'd never guess it from the actual text. (Hannah basically serves the same purpose, except she has even LESS to her besides having sex with Seth, which, since they're FOURTEEN/FIFTEEN, is genuinely CREEPY, no matter if this in the 1800s.)
I still really feel confused about what the almost-rape in the beginning of the book served. It had at least 75 pages and yet nothing came of it. It's a serious, awful topic and it was just shoved into the beginning of the book to... I don't know, advance the plot. Gross. So gross. Please stop. Honestly I was hoping it WOULD be for something, because guys getting raped is so rarely discussed, and I wanted the book to HAVE that, to explore it - but no. No. Instead we just get... sex, gay panic, and f-bombs.
I wanted to like this book. It's been sitting on my shelf for years after I stopped reading the first time - too much swearing for me then, no doubt - but I read it for a reading challenge, and I was determined to get through it. And it starts off promising, continues to have a bit of promise throughout, even though it does have way too much swearing and way too much sex. But just... ugh.
Some two-star books I feel comfortable reccing to someone with different tastes than myself - I get that different tastes exist and that I am not the audience for every book, and that every book has its audience - but I don't want to rec this one, not to anyone. (Especially not its YA audience. Gross. SO GROSS. STOP. THIS IS AN ADULT-THEMED BOOK.) Two stars for the promising premise and for the admittedly effective prose, when it's not swearing or waving codpieces, but it's a zero-star book in my heart.
Well this book took me the longest to read of any book in a long time. I just didn't want to read it. I almost didn't finish it and in fact had to force myself to finish it. I didn't like it, I didn't get it, I didn't like any of the characters, and I thought the story was a disjointed mess.
First of all Jack is not a character I was ever sympathetic to in any way; even when he was kidnapped and almost raped. He is just written in such a way that it is hard to feel sympathy or empathy towards him. He states that he feels nothing towards his grandparents who have raised him, he treats his kidnapping and almost rape like something he deserves, he treats his only friend and girl friend like crap (who he claims to love) and then he spirals down into this junkie, depression, obsession psychosis. Connor is just an ass and was never likable from the beginning. I am not sure we were ever meant to like him? And Nikki and Rachel are such side characters that it is hard to even know them at all.
As far as Marbury is concerned it hardly seems real...is that the point? And our glimpses of it are so disjointed that I never felt a connected to that world. There are so many great post-apocalyptic worlds out there in literature and Marbury just seems underdeveloped. We don't know enough about it for it to seem truly real or scary.
This book really seemed like three stories in one book. You had Jack's real world story, Marbury and then Seth's story. Seth's story really didn't fit into the book and seemed the most random of the three. I am not sure what the point of having it there was. It was an interesting story sure, but there was really no point to it being in the book. It went nowhere.
I think the book would have been much stronger if we would have found out at the end that it was all in Jack's head or that he was still kidnapped and tied to the bed in Freddie's basement. In fact, I kept expecting that to be how the book ended. I think that is why I don't get it. What is the point if it is a real place? It would have been really interesting if Jack had been going crazy and imagining Marbury...not sure how you would explain Connor's involvement. But the end just hung there and offered no resolution.
I feel like this book was a huge let down and a big waste of my time to read. I was really looking forward to it and am very disappointed in how it turned out.
****Ok, I'm not very far into this one, but it is difficult to like a protagonist who is kidnapped and almost raped, but won't got to the police and report the guy even though the guy has admitted that he has done it before and it sounds like the others have died. Jack even says that the guy will do it again and probably get caught sometime. And the reason he gives for not reporting it...he doesn't want to mess up his summer. I know he is scared and embarrassed, but come on! He is putting other lives at risk. I truly hope he becomes a little more likable.
First of all Jack is not a character I was ever sympathetic to in any way; even when he was kidnapped and almost raped. He is just written in such a way that it is hard to feel sympathy or empathy towards him. He states that he feels nothing towards his grandparents who have raised him, he treats his kidnapping and almost rape like something he deserves, he treats his only friend and girl friend like crap (who he claims to love) and then he spirals down into this junkie, depression, obsession psychosis. Connor is just an ass and was never likable from the beginning. I am not sure we were ever meant to like him? And Nikki and Rachel are such side characters that it is hard to even know them at all.
As far as Marbury is concerned it hardly seems real...is that the point? And our glimpses of it are so disjointed that I never felt a connected to that world. There are so many great post-apocalyptic worlds out there in literature and Marbury just seems underdeveloped. We don't know enough about it for it to seem truly real or scary.
This book really seemed like three stories in one book. You had Jack's real world story, Marbury and then Seth's story. Seth's story really didn't fit into the book and seemed the most random of the three. I am not sure what the point of having it there was. It was an interesting story sure, but there was really no point to it being in the book. It went nowhere.
I think the book would have been much stronger if we would have found out at the end that it was all in Jack's head or that he was still kidnapped and tied to the bed in Freddie's basement. In fact, I kept expecting that to be how the book ended. I think that is why I don't get it. What is the point if it is a real place? It would have been really interesting if Jack had been going crazy and imagining Marbury...not sure how you would explain Connor's involvement. But the end just hung there and offered no resolution.
I feel like this book was a huge let down and a big waste of my time to read. I was really looking forward to it and am very disappointed in how it turned out.
****Ok, I'm not very far into this one, but it is difficult to like a protagonist who is kidnapped and almost raped, but won't got to the police and report the guy even though the guy has admitted that he has done it before and it sounds like the others have died. Jack even says that the guy will do it again and probably get caught sometime. And the reason he gives for not reporting it...he doesn't want to mess up his summer. I know he is scared and embarrassed, but come on! He is putting other lives at risk. I truly hope he becomes a little more likable.
I felt so sick.
This is when it started falling apart.
I know that now.
Jack shares this on page 53, still quite early in his book, but well after he's been kidnapped, tortured, and nearly raped, has escaped and, with the help of his best friend, accidentally killed his attacker while trying to take revenge. Things start bad, but they get much, much worse. Because Jack can't escape the shame and trauma of his experience, even after flying all the way to England and falling in love with a beautiful girl. Because England is where a stranger starts following him, then gives him a pair of glasses. When he puts the lenses on, he becomes another Jack in a dystopian wasteland of a world called Marbury. There Jack is one of three survivors looking for any signs of life other than the cannibals that dog their every step, cannibals that include a Marbury version of Connor, his best friend and the only person he's ever truly loved (before Nickie). Each time Jack goes to Marbury he loses his memory of what he is doing in England and hurts Connor and Nickie, but he can't stop going to the place. He doesn't know what's real anymore and thinks his experience might have driven him insane, but can't stop his addiction to bleak, shriveled desolation--whether in the form of Marbury, the real world, his body, or his psyche.
This is a hesitant five-star review for me (no it's not; see the update), and I almost gave it four. As much as I liked the book, I wanted to like it more. Jack, you see, stubbornly insists he has never cried and never will. Accordingly, he tells his story a bit distantly and matter-of-factly. Normally I love emotionally understated characters with subtle and deep impact, but this one felt just a bit too remote and at arm's length; I wanted to feel more horror and emotional connection with Jack than I did. Perhaps the issue is in me the reader more than in the writing because I don't have anything slightly similar to Jack's experience that would allow me to relate. Perhaps, but it was still terribly powerful (and believable, for all the fantasy). It's five stars anyway and, unlike most every other book I finish, I'd like to read this one again before too long.
And I absolutely think the opening cannot be topped (particularly looking back in light of a subplot I haven't even mentioned):
I guess in the old days, in other places, boys like me usually ended up twisting and kicking in the empty air beneath gallows.
It's no wonder I became a monster, too.
I mean, what would you expect, anyway?
And all the guys I know--all the guys I ever knew--can look at their lives and point to the one defining moment that made them who they were, no question about it. Usually those moments involve things like hitting baseballs, or their dads showing them how to gap spark plugs or bait a hook. Stuff like that.
My defining moment came last summer, when I was sixteen.
That's when I got kidnapped.
UPDATE: I said I wanted to read this one again and I just did (well, listened to the excellent audio this time). I'm no longer the least bit hesitant about my five stars. I think it was this reader who was too remote my first reading, and not Jack or Smith. This time my experience was much more visceral and immediate. I was also able to appreciate the deftness and poetry of Smith's use of language. A short example I like, one Smith actually highlighted in a blog post about poetry: In the foothills, we rode through a forest of crucifixions.
An interesting note, also from his blog: "I'm wondering how to go about phrasing my conviction that The Marbury Lens is totally real. . . . when I was writing The Marbury Lens, the few people whom I spoke with about writing it (and, by the way, I NEVER talk details about anything I am writing while in the process), I told them that I was "writing a fantasy that isn't a fantasy."" I don't remember when I read this well enough to find the specific post, but I remember previously reading him saying something along the lines of The Marbury Lens is his story.
Smith has a way of picking and using names so they stick with you.
The more I see the cover, the more I want to keep looking at it.
Hey, Nickie, did I tell you about how I got kidnapped by this sick guy named Freddie Horvath? And how he shot me up with drugs and shocked me, and I thought I was going to die? And, oh yeah, how he tried to rape me, too?
But I got away from him.
YOU DIDN'T GET AWAY FROM ANYTHING, JACK.
Freddie Horvath did something to my brain.
And then me and my best friend, Connor, killed him. It was an accident, but we fucking killed him, just the same. Did I tell you that, Nickie? Or, did I tell you about how I can't even remember anything about meeting you today because I hallucinated some crazy shit about people getting hacked into pieces and eaten by bugs? Or how I got shot through my side with an arrow?
Did I tell you about that, Nickie?
Because I do remember that.
This is when it started falling apart.
I know that now.
Jack shares this on page 53, still quite early in his book, but well after he's been kidnapped, tortured, and nearly raped, has escaped and, with the help of his best friend, accidentally killed his attacker while trying to take revenge. Things start bad, but they get much, much worse. Because Jack can't escape the shame and trauma of his experience, even after flying all the way to England and falling in love with a beautiful girl. Because England is where a stranger starts following him, then gives him a pair of glasses. When he puts the lenses on, he becomes another Jack in a dystopian wasteland of a world called Marbury. There Jack is one of three survivors looking for any signs of life other than the cannibals that dog their every step, cannibals that include a Marbury version of Connor, his best friend and the only person he's ever truly loved (before Nickie). Each time Jack goes to Marbury he loses his memory of what he is doing in England and hurts Connor and Nickie, but he can't stop going to the place. He doesn't know what's real anymore and thinks his experience might have driven him insane, but can't stop his addiction to bleak, shriveled desolation--whether in the form of Marbury, the real world, his body, or his psyche.
This is a hesitant five-star review for me (no it's not; see the update), and I almost gave it four. As much as I liked the book, I wanted to like it more. Jack, you see, stubbornly insists he has never cried and never will. Accordingly, he tells his story a bit distantly and matter-of-factly. Normally I love emotionally understated characters with subtle and deep impact, but this one felt just a bit too remote and at arm's length; I wanted to feel more horror and emotional connection with Jack than I did. Perhaps the issue is in me the reader more than in the writing because I don't have anything slightly similar to Jack's experience that would allow me to relate. Perhaps, but it was still terribly powerful (and believable, for all the fantasy). It's five stars anyway and, unlike most every other book I finish, I'd like to read this one again before too long.
And I absolutely think the opening cannot be topped (particularly looking back in light of a subplot I haven't even mentioned):
I guess in the old days, in other places, boys like me usually ended up twisting and kicking in the empty air beneath gallows.
It's no wonder I became a monster, too.
I mean, what would you expect, anyway?
And all the guys I know--all the guys I ever knew--can look at their lives and point to the one defining moment that made them who they were, no question about it. Usually those moments involve things like hitting baseballs, or their dads showing them how to gap spark plugs or bait a hook. Stuff like that.
My defining moment came last summer, when I was sixteen.
That's when I got kidnapped.
UPDATE: I said I wanted to read this one again and I just did (well, listened to the excellent audio this time). I'm no longer the least bit hesitant about my five stars. I think it was this reader who was too remote my first reading, and not Jack or Smith. This time my experience was much more visceral and immediate. I was also able to appreciate the deftness and poetry of Smith's use of language. A short example I like, one Smith actually highlighted in a blog post about poetry: In the foothills, we rode through a forest of crucifixions.
An interesting note, also from his blog: "I'm wondering how to go about phrasing my conviction that The Marbury Lens is totally real. . . . when I was writing The Marbury Lens, the few people whom I spoke with about writing it (and, by the way, I NEVER talk details about anything I am writing while in the process), I told them that I was "writing a fantasy that isn't a fantasy."" I don't remember when I read this well enough to find the specific post, but I remember previously reading him saying something along the lines of The Marbury Lens is his story.
Smith has a way of picking and using names so they stick with you.
The more I see the cover, the more I want to keep looking at it.
Hey, Nickie, did I tell you about how I got kidnapped by this sick guy named Freddie Horvath? And how he shot me up with drugs and shocked me, and I thought I was going to die? And, oh yeah, how he tried to rape me, too?
But I got away from him.
YOU DIDN'T GET AWAY FROM ANYTHING, JACK.
Freddie Horvath did something to my brain.
And then me and my best friend, Connor, killed him. It was an accident, but we fucking killed him, just the same. Did I tell you that, Nickie? Or, did I tell you about how I can't even remember anything about meeting you today because I hallucinated some crazy shit about people getting hacked into pieces and eaten by bugs? Or how I got shot through my side with an arrow?
Did I tell you about that, Nickie?
Because I do remember that.
I love some of Andrew Smith's other books but WTF was this shit?