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lashette's review against another edition
I didn't finish it because its been too long since reading the first book. I am so confused and not in the right mindset to fully immerse myself. So I'll come back to this later.
lesley's review against another edition
1.0
I hate to do this because I've liked every other Ilsa Bick book I've read but I just plain didn't like this book. It's convoluted in the worst of ways and from the first moment doesn't expand on it's book vs reality theme. Thus the 600 pages of this book was filled with tons of repetition (every character coming to the realization of their real/unrealness over and over and over). It was just too much of not much at all. Such as:
Young Emma at 12 years old reveals much of the conclusions reached like Meredith (Black Widow) finding them through dreams, coming up with complication scientific explanations that even older Emma shouldn't have been able to spontaneously arrive at without reason.
Doyle after only meeting London Tony once thinks of him as "my Tony" when he sees the other Tony? Too convenient.
Chapters through the POV of Elizabeth that are actually mostly Emma and is she talking to London Rima or 'shadow stuck in her head' Rima? It becomes clear but only by having to remove yourself from the story and contemplate it.
Why was the dead Emma body so important? And really 4 Emmas all at once? Dead Emma, empty Meme, 12 year old young Emma and 'shadow in Elizabeth's head' Emma... what was the point?
The action seemed silly (Elizabeth and mind Emma having a girl fight in Elizabeth's subconscious?) and the gratuitous violence (which I don't mind gore at all) seemed to be disjointed like Bick thought after 3 chapters of internal philosophical monologue (if you can call having a conversation with a bunch of shadow kids in your head internal monologue) and before 3 chapters more of that she should throw in some Zombie gut explosions... but for what?
I wasn't mesmerized by the concept nor could I submerge myself enough into the story or the characters (the only character that even had a personality was Doyle and not a deep one at that) but what I thought about constantly through out the book was that I was impressed that Bick could keep it all going in her own head. I certainly stopped caring to do so.
I'm looking forward to more books from her though and I wouldn't deter her fans from reading this to see what they think for themselves.
Young Emma at 12 years old reveals much of the conclusions reached like Meredith (Black Widow) finding them through dreams, coming up with complication scientific explanations that even older Emma shouldn't have been able to spontaneously arrive at without reason.
Doyle after only meeting London Tony once thinks of him as "my Tony" when he sees the other Tony? Too convenient.
Chapters through the POV of Elizabeth that are actually mostly Emma and is she talking to London Rima or 'shadow stuck in her head' Rima? It becomes clear but only by having to remove yourself from the story and contemplate it.
Why was the dead Emma body so important? And really 4 Emmas all at once? Dead Emma, empty Meme, 12 year old young Emma and 'shadow in Elizabeth's head' Emma... what was the point?
The action seemed silly (Elizabeth and mind Emma having a girl fight in Elizabeth's subconscious?) and the gratuitous violence (which I don't mind gore at all) seemed to be disjointed like Bick thought after 3 chapters of internal philosophical monologue (if you can call having a conversation with a bunch of shadow kids in your head internal monologue) and before 3 chapters more of that she should throw in some Zombie gut explosions... but for what?
I wasn't mesmerized by the concept nor could I submerge myself enough into the story or the characters (the only character that even had a personality was Doyle and not a deep one at that) but what I thought about constantly through out the book was that I was impressed that Bick could keep it all going in her own head. I certainly stopped caring to do so.
I'm looking forward to more books from her though and I wouldn't deter her fans from reading this to see what they think for themselves.
lashette's review against another edition
I didn't finish it because its been too long since reading the first book. I am so confused and not in the right mindset to fully immerse myself. So I'll come back to this later.
ruthsic's review against another edition
4.0
Set in an alternative London, The Dickens Mirror is within a single Now this time around. Continuing with the theme of blurring reality and fiction, Bick centers this story around Elizabeth, who is grown up and committed in this version of London. The setting is post-apocalyptic and the characters from the previous book appear in this, but slightly different. Of course, with multiverses, you can have mutliple variations on the same character, and the book plays on that. So, basic story - someone is hunting down these alternate variations of these characters and Emma is brought to this London as a kid. The adult Emma is stuck in the Dark Passages because the stain won't allow her to leave. She and the other characters from the first, all are stuck here, and forced to live in Elizabeth's consciousness. The build-up is definitely slow, nothing like White Space which was mostly horror and action. There is also a Arthur Conan Doyle alternate, and his reason for being there is quite interesting. The book gets very meta towards the end and truly, I cannot explain the ingenuity in words. The ending was surprisingly comforting for a reader, considering the previous book was of nightmarish proportions. I don't know if this was a duology, but if it is, it ended pretty well, with good resolution to every character.
The writing - well, there will never be a day when I don't praise Bick. I suspect she uses the Dark Passages, with how real her books seem. ;) Honestly, she has this way of making so distinct and realistic multiple POVs, that I feel like I am living the book. There is also a meta moment at the end of the book that breaks the fourth wall and I was just euphoric at it. Oh, if only! The pace was slow, and that's where I found it a bit lacking. For a nearly 600 page book, it was less development and more tying up everything together, so it definitely lacked in the action but certainly made up in the mind-messing department.
Received an ARC from EgmontUSA via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The writing - well, there will never be a day when I don't praise Bick. I suspect she uses the Dark Passages, with how real her books seem. ;) Honestly, she has this way of making so distinct and realistic multiple POVs, that I feel like I am living the book. There is also a meta moment at the end of the book that breaks the fourth wall and I was just euphoric at it. Oh, if only! The pace was slow, and that's where I found it a bit lacking. For a nearly 600 page book, it was less development and more tying up everything together, so it definitely lacked in the action but certainly made up in the mind-messing department.
Received an ARC from EgmontUSA via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
bibliotropic's review against another edition
5.0
This book is going to be difficult for me to review properly. In part because it’s such a brain-bender, requiring you to really really challenge your grasp of timelines and your sense of reality, and in part because a section of my brain just wants to make this review entirely out of swear words, because it’s just that amazing!
Continuing from where White Space left off, Emma is now trapped in the mind of Elizabeth, who is in turn trapped inside an asylum in an alternate-universe Victoria London that is besieged by a strange thick fog and a dreaded rotting disease. Rima, Tony, and Bode are also there, but as though they grew up in that London, rather than as the characters we got to know in the previous book. Kramer is still after the secret of the Dickens Mirror and the ability to jump to different Nows.
When I said this book is a brain-bender, I wasn’t exaggerating. Firstly, there’s all the ideas that got introduced during White Space. That book-worlds can yield real people. That characters in books can create characters of their own and in turn become real. That real people can have pieces of themselves put into characters in books and thus share a deep link with them. That time is an illusion. That’s all still in there, and is fundamental to understanding what’s going on. Then you add in a tweak on dissociative identity disorder, the question of whether characters are more real than the people who created them, and whether or not I as the reader am even real or whether Ilsa Bick is still writing me!
(No, seriously, I actually had a moment during this book where I doubted my own reality. The Dickens Mirror may go down in my personal history as the only novel to give me an existential crisis.)
Then it goes on to get even more meta with the ending, when Emma is sitting in a bookstore listening to an author talk about her new novel, The Dickens Mirror, and how it plays with multiverse theory, and Emma thinks that she hates it when characters in books have the same name as her. And while it’s a lovely little tongue-in-cheek scene, it also begs the question as to whether or not that Emma is the primary Emma, or whether that’s even an applicable question because of course she can’t be, she’s just a character in the book I’m reading, OH WAIT MY BRAIN HURTS AGAIN!
This is what you’re in for when you read this series. And I strongly recommend you do. It’s phenomenal, one of the best YA series to come along in years, and tragically underappreciated because it involves a highly complex plot that many people just don’t seem to be able to wrap their heads around. It’s not a light read. It may require you to keep notes so that the converging plotlines and multi-dimensional versions of characters keep making sense. It’s the kind of series you read when you want something utterly out of the ordinary, something to challenge you and your fundamental beliefs about reality and the nature of being. It introduces some advanced ideas that aren’t simple to comprehend and are even more difficult to apply.
But here’s the thing. If you can fall into the right headspace, throw aside your understanding of reality and just let the story carry you along, it still all makes sense. It’s a mind-twister for certain, but it’s still a cohesive story that gets a solid conclusion within the boundaries it sets for itself. It’s not trite. It’s disturbing on multiple levels, both with stomach-churning imagery and thought-churning quantum theory. I think it works best for people who already know how to look at the world sideways, who look at life from different angles and who don’t just accept things as they are because that’s what everyone says is so. It’s for people who love to ask questions and be challenged by the answers. And it’s a series with amazing reread potential, something with earlier scenes you can probably read completely differently when you already know the truth.
I can’t recommend White Space and The Dickens Mirror enough, I really can’t. Bick works wonders here, true wonders, and I have immense respect for someone who can sit down and hold this entire story in their head while writing it out. Take your time with this one, let the amazing characters and the outstanding story sweep you away, keep copious notes, and enjoy the ride. I’ve found a gem among gems, a novel with wide cross-genre appeal, and while it may take some getting used to, it’s worth every last second.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
Continuing from where White Space left off, Emma is now trapped in the mind of Elizabeth, who is in turn trapped inside an asylum in an alternate-universe Victoria London that is besieged by a strange thick fog and a dreaded rotting disease. Rima, Tony, and Bode are also there, but as though they grew up in that London, rather than as the characters we got to know in the previous book. Kramer is still after the secret of the Dickens Mirror and the ability to jump to different Nows.
When I said this book is a brain-bender, I wasn’t exaggerating. Firstly, there’s all the ideas that got introduced during White Space. That book-worlds can yield real people. That characters in books can create characters of their own and in turn become real. That real people can have pieces of themselves put into characters in books and thus share a deep link with them. That time is an illusion. That’s all still in there, and is fundamental to understanding what’s going on. Then you add in a tweak on dissociative identity disorder, the question of whether characters are more real than the people who created them, and whether or not I as the reader am even real or whether Ilsa Bick is still writing me!
(No, seriously, I actually had a moment during this book where I doubted my own reality. The Dickens Mirror may go down in my personal history as the only novel to give me an existential crisis.)
Then it goes on to get even more meta with the ending, when Emma is sitting in a bookstore listening to an author talk about her new novel, The Dickens Mirror, and how it plays with multiverse theory, and Emma thinks that she hates it when characters in books have the same name as her. And while it’s a lovely little tongue-in-cheek scene, it also begs the question as to whether or not that Emma is the primary Emma, or whether that’s even an applicable question because of course she can’t be, she’s just a character in the book I’m reading, OH WAIT MY BRAIN HURTS AGAIN!
This is what you’re in for when you read this series. And I strongly recommend you do. It’s phenomenal, one of the best YA series to come along in years, and tragically underappreciated because it involves a highly complex plot that many people just don’t seem to be able to wrap their heads around. It’s not a light read. It may require you to keep notes so that the converging plotlines and multi-dimensional versions of characters keep making sense. It’s the kind of series you read when you want something utterly out of the ordinary, something to challenge you and your fundamental beliefs about reality and the nature of being. It introduces some advanced ideas that aren’t simple to comprehend and are even more difficult to apply.
But here’s the thing. If you can fall into the right headspace, throw aside your understanding of reality and just let the story carry you along, it still all makes sense. It’s a mind-twister for certain, but it’s still a cohesive story that gets a solid conclusion within the boundaries it sets for itself. It’s not trite. It’s disturbing on multiple levels, both with stomach-churning imagery and thought-churning quantum theory. I think it works best for people who already know how to look at the world sideways, who look at life from different angles and who don’t just accept things as they are because that’s what everyone says is so. It’s for people who love to ask questions and be challenged by the answers. And it’s a series with amazing reread potential, something with earlier scenes you can probably read completely differently when you already know the truth.
I can’t recommend White Space and The Dickens Mirror enough, I really can’t. Bick works wonders here, true wonders, and I have immense respect for someone who can sit down and hold this entire story in their head while writing it out. Take your time with this one, let the amazing characters and the outstanding story sweep you away, keep copious notes, and enjoy the ride. I’ve found a gem among gems, a novel with wide cross-genre appeal, and while it may take some getting used to, it’s worth every last second.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
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