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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I was actually pretty shocked by The Angel Maker. Usually, North has me hooked, through all the unsettling plot twists and supernatural-esque vibes, I can't get enough of his eerie, gritty, mysteries. But this time, it was a STRUGGLE to get through. Despite still having that creepy atmosphere and resonating prose that I normally love, I just couldn't get into this it book.
I think the biggest hinderance was the structure. There were just so many characters we're introduced to in such a short period of time, it hard's to build connections or grow attached to any of them. Any kind of inner exposition felt rushed and a tad forced, so the characters didn't get built up in a genuine or fleshed out kind of way. They all felt very surface level with the most basic of motivations. And not only were there are a lot of rapid fire POV's, but North also had us go through shifting timelines as well. It wasn't that that was difficult to keep track of, but the big picture started out so incredibly broad that as everything finally came together, I no longer cared. There were like four plot lines weaving throughout the novel and for a long time they seemed to have little relevance to each other. But not in the way that was intriguing and having you want to figure it out, instead it just felt like they were dragging the story down, operating in their own worlds until the last chapter. One plot was even a blatant throw away red herring that I'm not sure why North even stuck with to the end. And my last major gripe was the supernatural element. North often sets up his mysteries where for 75% of the novel, you're convinced the answer has to be something unexplainable, something outside the realm of reason. Until the big reveal that is, when everything is cleverly explained away. And I love that element!! It often speaks to how good of a writer North is to make the seemingly impossible suddenly very plausible. But not this time. Instead he fell victim to the Stephen King of blunders by setting up a seemingly non supernatural story and then letting God come in and lead the way. What an incredible disappointment.
And as for the other plot lines, Katie shows up in time to rescue Christopher while Edward sets himself on fire and burns the house down. Michael Hyde, the man who attacked Christopher as a child, was actually stalking her family and was planning to kill her daughter to right a wrong that occurred when he didn't manage to kill Christopher. And we also never get an explanation of who stabbed Hobbes, but I suppose we're left to believe it was Edward.
I think the biggest hinderance was the structure. There were just so many characters we're introduced to in such a short period of time, it hard's to build connections or grow attached to any of them. Any kind of inner exposition felt rushed and a tad forced, so the characters didn't get built up in a genuine or fleshed out kind of way. They all felt very surface level with the most basic of motivations. And not only were there are a lot of rapid fire POV's, but North also had us go through shifting timelines as well. It wasn't that that was difficult to keep track of, but the big picture started out so incredibly broad that as everything finally came together, I no longer cared. There were like four plot lines weaving throughout the novel and for a long time they seemed to have little relevance to each other. But not in the way that was intriguing and having you want to figure it out, instead it just felt like they were dragging the story down, operating in their own worlds until the last chapter. One plot was even a blatant throw away red herring that I'm not sure why North even stuck with to the end. And my last major gripe was the supernatural element. North often sets up his mysteries where for 75% of the novel, you're convinced the answer has to be something unexplainable, something outside the realm of reason. Until the big reveal that is, when everything is cleverly explained away. And I love that element!! It often speaks to how good of a writer North is to make the seemingly impossible suddenly very plausible. But not this time. Instead he fell victim to the Stephen King of blunders by setting up a seemingly non supernatural story and then letting God come in and lead the way. What an incredible disappointment.
Spoiler
Jack Lock actually could see the future apparently and wrote it all down in his notebook, which was how Alan Hobbes moved through life always seeming to know what was coming. Seeing that his brother Edward was going to murder his wife one day, Hobbes married her instead. When Edward was going to murder Hobbes' child in a fire, Hobbes swapped out his son with Edward's own. Now when Edward is hunting down Hobbes child as an adult, Christopher Shaw, Hobbes is yet again one step ahead to orchestrate it all. And he leaves his future telling notebook for Christopher, so that he can see what's coming and do with that info what he will. There were a few reasons I hated this. One, because I just can't stand when authors lean on supernatural crutches like that to explain away their plots. And two, it implies that Jack Lock, a literal child murderer and the lingering evil in this story, was right all along? That the past, present, and future have been set since the universe's inception, and any deviation from that path is blasphemy in the eyes of God. Hobbes himself even says that with every change he makes, he feels the world creaking around him to get back on it's natural course. So despite the hopeful twist North attempts to give the novel, the message is still somehow that everything is preordained, even the most evil of acts. That's just not for me.And as for the other plot lines, Katie shows up in time to rescue Christopher while Edward sets himself on fire and burns the house down. Michael Hyde, the man who attacked Christopher as a child, was actually stalking her family and was planning to kill her daughter to right a wrong that occurred when he didn't manage to kill Christopher. And we also never get an explanation of who stabbed Hobbes, but I suppose we're left to believe it was Edward.
When I first started reading The Angel Maker, I was convinced I was delving into a YA story about a romance between two teenagers. But when the question arose, "If you could see into the future, would you want to?" I was intrigued because who hasn't asked themselves that question?
The story jumps ahead to the future and the mystery ensues - why has a wealthy man let go of his staff just before he died? Who murdered him, and did he know it was going to happen?
There were a lot of characters which at first was confusing, but I knew there would eventually be connections. The book felt to me like it was written in the era of Jack the Ripper, or Sherlock Holmes. It had an atmosphere of dark alleys, crumbling, moldy, mansions, and antiquities. The horror was just under the surface.
Many thanks to NetGalley/Bookish First and Celadon Books for an advance reader’s copy!
The story jumps ahead to the future and the mystery ensues - why has a wealthy man let go of his staff just before he died? Who murdered him, and did he know it was going to happen?
There were a lot of characters which at first was confusing, but I knew there would eventually be connections. The book felt to me like it was written in the era of Jack the Ripper, or Sherlock Holmes. It had an atmosphere of dark alleys, crumbling, moldy, mansions, and antiquities. The horror was just under the surface.
Many thanks to NetGalley/Bookish First and Celadon Books for an advance reader’s copy!
Huge swing and a miss by North. I enjoyed his previous two books, but The Angel Maker is a contrived, convoluted mess. Katie Shaw is an insufferable character throughout who makes one bad, illogical decision after another. After an especially idiotic series of events/decisions by Shaw near the end of the book, I actually rolled my eyes and groaned out loud before putting the book down for good. Really hope this is a one-off, blame the pandemic misstep by North. He would not be alone as CJ Tudor and Alex Finlay also delivered their worst books this year.
Interwoven story about a killer and his family members and how it relates to another family.
“A journey seems to take place step by step while you’re on it, but if you could look down from above, you would see the whole route laid out below you. You would understand that the beginning, middle, and end all exist at once, and that they always had, and always would.”
Underpinning Alex North’s most recent novel, The Angel Maker, is the philosophical concept of determinism - the doctrine that all events, including human cognition and behaviour, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. North introduces readers like me to Laplace’s Demon, a 19th century concept of an omniscient where “nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
The notion that an individual has no free will and therefore cannot be held morally responsible for their actions has certainly been the subject of centuries of philosophical and scientific debate. A casual search of the internet for information about determinism throws up hundreds of thousands of webpages and introduces hard and soft determinism, compatibilism, incompatibilism, free will etc etc etc, making this topic fascinating in its own right. Me? I probably sit somewhere in the compatibilism space but that’s another story.
Anyway, back to Alex North and The Angel Maker, although I find it intriguing that the philosophy underpinning this book probably interested me more than the actual story. Ultimately The Angel Maker revolves around two brothers and two sons and the notion that the future is all mapped out and if perchance someone can predict the future then there is no choice but to fulfil it. Kind of extreme and I don’t think North does true justice to these concepts but a good try. The other notion that gets brought up is an individual sensing that they have to right a wrong course of action because what was supposed to have happened deterministically, was somehow thwarted. Again, a deep concept that for the sake of the story kind of got lost.
Overall a good read. I would say not as good as North’s previous two books. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 for the stimulus to read more about the determinism vs free will positions.
Underpinning Alex North’s most recent novel, The Angel Maker, is the philosophical concept of determinism - the doctrine that all events, including human cognition and behaviour, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. North introduces readers like me to Laplace’s Demon, a 19th century concept of an omniscient where “nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
The notion that an individual has no free will and therefore cannot be held morally responsible for their actions has certainly been the subject of centuries of philosophical and scientific debate. A casual search of the internet for information about determinism throws up hundreds of thousands of webpages and introduces hard and soft determinism, compatibilism, incompatibilism, free will etc etc etc, making this topic fascinating in its own right. Me? I probably sit somewhere in the compatibilism space but that’s another story.
Anyway, back to Alex North and The Angel Maker, although I find it intriguing that the philosophy underpinning this book probably interested me more than the actual story. Ultimately The Angel Maker revolves around two brothers and two sons and the notion that the future is all mapped out and if perchance someone can predict the future then there is no choice but to fulfil it. Kind of extreme and I don’t think North does true justice to these concepts but a good try. The other notion that gets brought up is an individual sensing that they have to right a wrong course of action because what was supposed to have happened deterministically, was somehow thwarted. Again, a deep concept that for the sake of the story kind of got lost.
Overall a good read. I would say not as good as North’s previous two books. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 for the stimulus to read more about the determinism vs free will positions.
As much as I wanted to love this book after his others, it fell short for me. The multiple characters and point of views made it clunky and hard to follow. The narrator did a good job of keeping it moving but he couldn't improve the story.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There was something off about this one for me! Could be a little reading slump or too many different characters, that didn’t feel fleshed out? The ending also felt very convenient…
Hard to follow and quickly introduced to many characters. Many, many unanswered questions.