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eviebookish's review
5.0
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Obscura Burning is both moving and intellectually stimulating. A fantastic, thought-provoking and mind-boggling story, executed with skill and honesty! Suzanne Van Rooyen swiftly guides the reader through the fractured narrative of her book, gradually building up tension and suspense to a dizzying crescendo ending. An unforgettable ending that will leave you breathless and thinking about it - examining all the possible explanations and trying to understand what really happened - for a very long time. I am still reeling from it. As much as I'd like to tell you that I managed to figure it all out, I'm still not sure what exactly went down in this book, and that's precisely what makes me love it so much!
Everything started with a fire that our MC, Kyle, can't even remember. His memory is in shreds and he doesn't know what caused the fire, or anything else that happened shortly after it broke out. All he knows is that his life and the entire world changed that night. A planet about the size of Mercury appeared out of nowhere and took up residence between Earth and Mars. And that mysterious planet - Obscura - has been messing things up ever since, causing weird things to happen. Since that night, Kyle's been jolted between two parallel realities, living two different lives - one in which his boyfriend Danny is alive and their best friend, Shira, is dead, and the other in which it is Shira who survived, and Danny who died in the fire. Kyle's world is crumbling to pieces. The shifts between realities are slowly killing him and he knows that he has to do something to stop Obscura from destroying his life, his sanity and the entire world.
I fell in love with Obsura Burning right from the get-go. The intriguing premise along with Suzanne's raw and affecting writing style had me hooked in an instant. I loved the idea behind this story and the more I read, the more intrigued and bewildered I became. Maybe even obsessed (a tiny little bit). The complexity of the plot didn't show itself in its full glory until the final passages, but even before the jaw-dropping climax I knew this was going to be a total killer! And I was right.
If you enjoy books that are messing with your head, there is no doubt in my mind that you will love Obscura Burning. It's a prime example of mental gymnastics. At the same time, it's also so much more than just an incredibly well-thought-out science fiction novel. It's a meaningful and profound tale of love, friendship, trust and betrayal, guilt, denial and redemption. Kyle is one incredibly complex and tragic character, and my heart ached for him. He's strong, yet so fragile and sensitive. All broken up inside, and yet so full of hope and love. He is vulnerable and sad, but he can be scary, too. Such a great, beautifully fleshed out MC! I absolutely loved following his story, as heartbreaking as it was.
I'm thrilled to have discovered this book. It was such an intense and memorable read, I will definitely be going back to it many times. I am also looking forward to Suzanne's upcoming books - she is definitely an author whose carrier I will be following closely!
Obscura Burning is both moving and intellectually stimulating. A fantastic, thought-provoking and mind-boggling story, executed with skill and honesty! Suzanne Van Rooyen swiftly guides the reader through the fractured narrative of her book, gradually building up tension and suspense to a dizzying crescendo ending. An unforgettable ending that will leave you breathless and thinking about it - examining all the possible explanations and trying to understand what really happened - for a very long time. I am still reeling from it. As much as I'd like to tell you that I managed to figure it all out, I'm still not sure what exactly went down in this book, and that's precisely what makes me love it so much!
Everything started with a fire that our MC, Kyle, can't even remember. His memory is in shreds and he doesn't know what caused the fire, or anything else that happened shortly after it broke out. All he knows is that his life and the entire world changed that night. A planet about the size of Mercury appeared out of nowhere and took up residence between Earth and Mars. And that mysterious planet - Obscura - has been messing things up ever since, causing weird things to happen. Since that night, Kyle's been jolted between two parallel realities, living two different lives - one in which his boyfriend Danny is alive and their best friend, Shira, is dead, and the other in which it is Shira who survived, and Danny who died in the fire. Kyle's world is crumbling to pieces. The shifts between realities are slowly killing him and he knows that he has to do something to stop Obscura from destroying his life, his sanity and the entire world.
I fell in love with Obsura Burning right from the get-go. The intriguing premise along with Suzanne's raw and affecting writing style had me hooked in an instant. I loved the idea behind this story and the more I read, the more intrigued and bewildered I became. Maybe even obsessed (a tiny little bit). The complexity of the plot didn't show itself in its full glory until the final passages, but even before the jaw-dropping climax I knew this was going to be a total killer! And I was right.
If you enjoy books that are messing with your head, there is no doubt in my mind that you will love Obscura Burning. It's a prime example of mental gymnastics. At the same time, it's also so much more than just an incredibly well-thought-out science fiction novel. It's a meaningful and profound tale of love, friendship, trust and betrayal, guilt, denial and redemption. Kyle is one incredibly complex and tragic character, and my heart ached for him. He's strong, yet so fragile and sensitive. All broken up inside, and yet so full of hope and love. He is vulnerable and sad, but he can be scary, too. Such a great, beautifully fleshed out MC! I absolutely loved following his story, as heartbreaking as it was.
I'm thrilled to have discovered this book. It was such an intense and memorable read, I will definitely be going back to it many times. I am also looking forward to Suzanne's upcoming books - she is definitely an author whose carrier I will be following closely!
reluming's review
2.0
(Find the original review at Jellyfish Reads.)
Ah, this book had so much promise...
The Kindle sample had me hooked from the beginning! The premise is just horrifically fascinating. Kyle, our protagonist, can remember very little about the night of the fire-- the fire that killed his best friends Danny and Shira. Ever since that night, he has been living out his days alternating between a reality where Danny is dead and Shira alive, and one where Shira is dead and Danny alive. And Kyle is struggling to figure out whether the fire was his fault or not, while at the same time trying to make sense of what is happening to him.
Desperately wanting to find out the answers, I bought the book. And you would think that with a premise like that, you'd be in for a hell of an emotional ride. But unfortunately, the book lacked emotional depth. Kyle seemed so blank the entire time. There was little sense of the history of his friendships with Danny and Shira. I didn't know why he was in love with Danny. I didn't know why he cared about Shira either. The author told us of so much complication, layers of entangled feelings in the relationships of these characters but failed to show any of it.
(Also, just to clarify for other people who might be on the hunt for bisexual characters like me: Kyle isn't bisexual. I bought the book thinking he might be, since he's in love with Danny and he's sleeping with Shira, but he actually identifies as gay.)
I was also mostly unimpressed by the treatment of female characters in this book, the way they were shamed for their sexualities, labelled sluts or bitches in a way that went unexamined by the narrative.
The plot was definitely interesting, but even though it kept me from giving up on the book, it wasn't particularly gripping and it all seemed to be building up to something with much more oomph than what actually happened in the end. The ending is ambiguous and, in my opinion, unsatisfying. The book is constantly going on about how Kyle might have to save the world, but the book simply doesn't deliver on that front. What goes on is much more personal, and very dark-- in fact the reveal at the end is pretty sinister and awful, and I felt it wasn't given enough attention. It was rushed and everything was left unresolved. I mean, the whole book is fairly dark, what with all the death, the obsession with fire, themes of rape, domestic abuse, violence, and so on, but the ending took it to a whole new level, and it just made me very uncomfortable that it was dealt with so quickly and then the book was over.
Ultimately this novel was forgettable, which is disappointing given how compelling the beginning was. The characters failed to leave an impression on me, for all that the book tries to make the end reveal as shocking as possible. I was left feeling cold.
tlbodine's review
5.0
A new planet, Obscura, has appeared in the solar system, and its presence is messing with radio signals -- and possibly time itself. After cataclysmic fire, Kyle Wolfe becomes unstuck in time, drifting between two worlds. In both, Kyle's life is slowly beginning to pull apart, and in order to bring himself some peace, he needs to work out exactly what happened -- and maybe find a way to enter another reality, one where he can still save his friends (and himself).
One of the things that attracted me to Obscura Burning was its setting. I spent a large portion of my teenage years near Shiprock, having gone to high school in nearby Aztec. Of course, the town where Kyle and his friends live isn't the real Shiprock, NM, but a fictional variant called Coyote's Luck.
It's an impressive feat, writing a book about northern New Mexico that manages to feel even remotely authentic -- especially when the author lives in Finland and has never visited the Four Corners.
The details are immaculately researched and more accurate than most fiction I've seen set in New Mexico. Still, the research is obvious, not organic, and a few of the details ring false. Simple things -- the use of 24-hour clocks, small verbal tics -- give away the author's European background, for example. There's also a handful of errors -- like referring to Albuquerque as the capital.
Nevertheless, I doubt that anyone living outside of the Four Corners would notice most of the small inconsistencies, and the fact that so much care has been given to detail is something that deserves high praise. Diversity is something often sorely lacking in books -- especially books aimed at teens -- and Obscura Burning has it in spades. Multiple ethnicities, classes and sexualities are represented here without their inclusion feeling "token" or preachy; everyone feels real and flawed and beautifully rendered.
Another of the great strengths of Obscura Burning: Its honesty. It doesn't flinch. Instead, it treats things with the kind of frankness and -- at times -- brutality that they deserve. I respect that in a book, especially a YA title. The prose, too, has several beautifully turned phrases and a handful of snicker-out-loud clever moments that make Kyle endearing as a narrator and show the author's skill.
Obscura Burning is a bit like Donnie Darko, both in subject matter and tone. The plot unfolds smoothly, and the time-travel mechanics are consistent and clever. There's a few tiny hiccups(Why does Dr. Cruz snap instantaneously from "this can't be happening" to "Oh hey, I know all about it, and here's a handy web forum I just happen to be following!"?) , but for the most part I was willing to sit back and enjoy the ride.
And then, of course, there's the ending. It's rare that I'm able to say, honestly, that I didn't see an end coming -- but this one had me writhing in uncertainty until the final page. The ending blindsided me, caught me completely off-guard, despite all of the puzzle pieces laid out in advance to set things up. This is a book that begs to be re-read so you can deconstruct the puzzle and find more clues to divine meaning from the finale.
Some people will probably dislike the ending. It's both untidy and ambiguous. But it also resonates in a way no other ending could have, and leaves you troubled and asking questions. Did it end the way I wanted? No. Most definitely not. But it may have ended the only way it could, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time yet.
One of the things that attracted me to Obscura Burning was its setting. I spent a large portion of my teenage years near Shiprock, having gone to high school in nearby Aztec. Of course, the town where Kyle and his friends live isn't the real Shiprock, NM, but a fictional variant called Coyote's Luck.
It's an impressive feat, writing a book about northern New Mexico that manages to feel even remotely authentic -- especially when the author lives in Finland and has never visited the Four Corners.
The details are immaculately researched and more accurate than most fiction I've seen set in New Mexico. Still, the research is obvious, not organic, and a few of the details ring false. Simple things -- the use of 24-hour clocks, small verbal tics -- give away the author's European background, for example. There's also a handful of errors -- like referring to Albuquerque as the capital.
Nevertheless, I doubt that anyone living outside of the Four Corners would notice most of the small inconsistencies, and the fact that so much care has been given to detail is something that deserves high praise. Diversity is something often sorely lacking in books -- especially books aimed at teens -- and Obscura Burning has it in spades. Multiple ethnicities, classes and sexualities are represented here without their inclusion feeling "token" or preachy; everyone feels real and flawed and beautifully rendered.
Another of the great strengths of Obscura Burning: Its honesty. It doesn't flinch. Instead, it treats things with the kind of frankness and -- at times -- brutality that they deserve. I respect that in a book, especially a YA title. The prose, too, has several beautifully turned phrases and a handful of snicker-out-loud clever moments that make Kyle endearing as a narrator and show the author's skill.
Obscura Burning is a bit like Donnie Darko, both in subject matter and tone. The plot unfolds smoothly, and the time-travel mechanics are consistent and clever. There's a few tiny hiccups
And then, of course, there's the ending. It's rare that I'm able to say, honestly, that I didn't see an end coming -- but this one had me writhing in uncertainty until the final page. The ending blindsided me, caught me completely off-guard, despite all of the puzzle pieces laid out in advance to set things up. This is a book that begs to be re-read so you can deconstruct the puzzle and find more clues to divine meaning from the finale.
Some people will probably dislike the ending. It's both untidy and ambiguous. But it also resonates in a way no other ending could have, and leaves you troubled and asking questions. Did it end the way I wanted? No. Most definitely not. But it may have ended the only way it could, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time yet.
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