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ericaroseeberhart 's review for:
Thorn Jack: A Night and Nothing Novel
by Katherine Harbour
I'm uncertain of how I feel about this novel.
Through out reading it I was criticizing it quite badly. I was reading it at the tail end of taking a graduate school course on fiction fundamentals and the coursework was bleeding out my eyes and all over the pages of this book.
I found a few things odd about the book. The length could easily be cut back. There are a lot of unnecessary scenes that didn't tie to the overall plot or only ended up being repetitive as it tried to pound the fact that the location we were dealing with was odd/unique/magical.
The character relationships were far too quickly formed. While once they were established the friendships seemed genuine, their development rushed through. I believe it took one chapter for each relationship to develop. It was to the extent that it reminded me of small children who meet, discover they both like to run in circles, and immediately consider themselves the best of friends. Except as adults we do not develop friendships that quickly. So all relationships in the book were a little awkward for me because they became so tight, so close, within what seemed to span a month's time. Same goes for the love interest--how in love can you be with a person who is so much a mystery to you in so short a period of time.
Another very minor issue I had: I understand the author was born/raised in upstate NY just as I was. Yet this takes place in the fall, the characters are starting college and there's leaves falling all aflutter and fireflies out. Three things: most colleges begin in August, few begin in September. In upstate NY while foliage begins earlier than most places, it's not in full swing in August. Also, once the foliage starts it's also usually quite cold out and there would be no fire flies. Super minor details that no one else cares about but it irritated me constantly.
Other than that, I did enjoy the book. Don't allow my list of complaints make you assume otherwise. I read it and was happy to read it. I was eager to find out how they would get out of the situations they were in, cheered on the good guys, and booed the bad. When I finished the book I found myself thinking of that world quite often for the week following it. Harbour uses beautiful language to convey the otherworldly details of the characters and I feel she wrote decent, raw emotion when handling those who are left behind after a suicide of someone close.
Through out reading it I was criticizing it quite badly. I was reading it at the tail end of taking a graduate school course on fiction fundamentals and the coursework was bleeding out my eyes and all over the pages of this book.
I found a few things odd about the book. The length could easily be cut back. There are a lot of unnecessary scenes that didn't tie to the overall plot or only ended up being repetitive as it tried to pound the fact that the location we were dealing with was odd/unique/magical.
The character relationships were far too quickly formed. While once they were established the friendships seemed genuine, their development rushed through. I believe it took one chapter for each relationship to develop. It was to the extent that it reminded me of small children who meet, discover they both like to run in circles, and immediately consider themselves the best of friends. Except as adults we do not develop friendships that quickly. So all relationships in the book were a little awkward for me because they became so tight, so close, within what seemed to span a month's time. Same goes for the love interest--how in love can you be with a person who is so much a mystery to you in so short a period of time.
Another very minor issue I had: I understand the author was born/raised in upstate NY just as I was. Yet this takes place in the fall, the characters are starting college and there's leaves falling all aflutter and fireflies out. Three things: most colleges begin in August, few begin in September. In upstate NY while foliage begins earlier than most places, it's not in full swing in August. Also, once the foliage starts it's also usually quite cold out and there would be no fire flies. Super minor details that no one else cares about but it irritated me constantly.
Other than that, I did enjoy the book. Don't allow my list of complaints make you assume otherwise. I read it and was happy to read it. I was eager to find out how they would get out of the situations they were in, cheered on the good guys, and booed the bad. When I finished the book I found myself thinking of that world quite often for the week following it. Harbour uses beautiful language to convey the otherworldly details of the characters and I feel she wrote decent, raw emotion when handling those who are left behind after a suicide of someone close.