Scan barcode
A review by princess_starr
Blackwood by Gwenda Bond
2.0
I’ve heard a lot about Gwenda Bond from the various authors that I follow online, but she was always an author that I’d read the synopsis of her book and just end up putting back on the shelf. I don’t know what it is, but there’s always something about the synopses that just turn me off on the book. And having read Blackwood, I’m still unsure if I want to give Woken Gods a shot. (I will also admit to being incredibly busy this month, which is why it took me so long to get through this book. Amongst other reasons, but there’s a good chunk of “Yeah, can’t read two books right now.”)
This is one of those books with a strong concept, good characters, and terrible plot execution. The first quarter of this pulled me in with the sudden new disappearances on Roanoke Island, and I was curious to find out the meaning of the black ship and how it ties to Miranda’s family, but by the time Phillips returns to Roanoke Island, the plot momentum screeches to a halt and drags on until the last quarter. And in the last quarter of the book, the climax and resolution are so completely ridiculous that I wasn’t sure what I was reading. I could almost excuse the meandering middle part of the book where Miranda and Phillips are discovering Deep Dark Historical Secrets if there was a good payoff for the ending. Instead, we get death by drowning because of curse limitations. (And when I thought about that ending, technically it shouldn’t have worked.)
As I said, I liked the premise. While I ascribe to the tribe integration theory of the colonists, I do like that Bond is trying something different with her premise behind the colonists’ disappearance. I like the concept of “Okay, well, there’s a interdimensional rift where the souls of the colonists are waiting to possess modern day bodies.”; I can run with that. I can even run with the idea that all of the missing were followers of John Dee and alchemists. My problems start with the whole history involving John Dee trying to usurp Elizabeth I with a race of immortal colonists. That’s when my believability meter cracking because yeah no. I could go off on how much this mucks about with Elizabethan history because no. No. John Dee was wandering Europe and communicating with angels at the time of the colony’s founding. That’s just the start of the problems. (Also, saying Raleigh was a favorite of Elizabeth’s =/= they were banging. There’s actually no conclusive evidence of them having an affair.) And then there’s a magical gun that imparts immortality in a two-step process that never really gets explained; not to mention, the gun never actually or metaphorically goes off and plays any importance to the plot.
The main chunk of the book just has some of the weirdest plot points that I just had to put my head down for a few minutes because my brain started hurting from trying to unravel it. For example, Phillips is accused of murdering Miranda’s father by the FBI! Oh no! Except that this plot thread makes NO FREAKING SENSE because it’s outright stated that Phillips wasn’t even in the same state at the time of the murder. I just…what? And their reasoning is that “Oh, well you broke into the funeral home and touched the body! And now the body’s gone!” I…look, lock him up for breaking and entering then. And then we find out that John Dee is possessing Miranda’s father, which NOBODY QUESTIONS. NOBODY. Apparently the only three people in town who recognize the former Mr. Blackwood are Miranda, the town sheriff and the guy who runs the liquor store. I mean, the police are going to investigate all of the missing people, right? No? You’re just going to let them go off to the Blackwood house and nobody is going to question why the dead guy who is well known around town is suddenly walking around and missing a very distinctive birthmark? And let them put on a play? (Yes, this is the climax of the book. The antagonists hold a ceremony at the local town play.)
(And again, the historical fail with a nice heaping pile of DO NOT WANT is that John Dee was apparently in love with Miranda’s ancestor, Mary Blackwood, and thinks that Miranda is her reincarnated. And hits on Miranda while in her father’s body.
Yeah. I'm going let that sit here.)
And to defeat the evil John Dee, Miranda’s big grand solution is to have her father walk into the ocean and drown, because her family’s curse stipulates that a Blackwood can never leave the island. Which 1. Shouldn’t work because Dee’s proven that he can jump into other bodies at will, and 2. Apparently, having the snake birthmark means that Miranda now has the curse, so would that mean her dad is wandering the ocean floor forever until he’s depressurized? Not the immortality gun which Miranda does tamper with, it just does nothing in the climax.
The thing is, I would have given a lot of this book a free pass, because I did genuinely like the characters. Both Miranda and Phillips do err on the side of bland a lot of the time—she’s a small town girl who wants more than her dead end life; he’s the charming troublemaker with a heart of gold (and a daaaark secret). But I found both of them to be endearing and funny and I love that the two have instant chemistry with one another. I really liked Phillips’s relationship with his parents—yes, even though he caused hell for them so he could get away from the voices of Roanoke, they still care a lot for Phillips. Plus I think it does say a lot about how much his father really trusts Phillips to bring him home to help with the new disappearances. The fact that Phillips’s parents know about his psychic abilities is actually a welcome change in most of the YA paranormal I’ve read; they might not believe in it 100% but they acknowledge it exists, their son has to live with this and they’re willing to help him. (Which goes right out the window whenever the murder charges show up, because no, really, that’s the stupidest accusation in the whole book and Phillips’s parents would damn well know firsthand that it’s stupid.)
As I said in the beginning, there was a lot to this book that I was looking forward to. I liked the concept even if my inner history geek was crying in corner and I really liked the main characters. But…look. I can handwave a lot of things if there’s good plotting that makes sense within the book’s context. I have no idea what happened to the plot in this book. The way things are explained and revealed seem so happenstance and it comes out of nowhere, and the way Bond introduces conflict is kind of insulting to the parties involved. (Seriously, the whole making Phillips a fugitive. What was that. You had a perfectly good reason to lock him up, we didn’t need murder charges.) The ending has a plot hole big enough to drive an eighteen wheeler through it.
I really don’t want to say that “Oh, well, the reason I never picked up Gwenda Bond before is that my instincts are right!” but I am less curious to check out Woken Gods. I do want to see what else she can do, but I think it’s going to take a lot more for me to check out her books now.
This is one of those books with a strong concept, good characters, and terrible plot execution. The first quarter of this pulled me in with the sudden new disappearances on Roanoke Island, and I was curious to find out the meaning of the black ship and how it ties to Miranda’s family, but by the time Phillips returns to Roanoke Island, the plot momentum screeches to a halt and drags on until the last quarter. And in the last quarter of the book, the climax and resolution are so completely ridiculous that I wasn’t sure what I was reading. I could almost excuse the meandering middle part of the book where Miranda and Phillips are discovering Deep Dark Historical Secrets if there was a good payoff for the ending. Instead, we get death by drowning because of curse limitations. (And when I thought about that ending, technically it shouldn’t have worked.)
As I said, I liked the premise. While I ascribe to the tribe integration theory of the colonists, I do like that Bond is trying something different with her premise behind the colonists’ disappearance. I like the concept of “Okay, well, there’s a interdimensional rift where the souls of the colonists are waiting to possess modern day bodies.”; I can run with that. I can even run with the idea that all of the missing were followers of John Dee and alchemists. My problems start with the whole history involving John Dee trying to usurp Elizabeth I with a race of immortal colonists. That’s when my believability meter cracking because yeah no. I could go off on how much this mucks about with Elizabethan history because no. No. John Dee was wandering Europe and communicating with angels at the time of the colony’s founding. That’s just the start of the problems. (Also, saying Raleigh was a favorite of Elizabeth’s =/= they were banging. There’s actually no conclusive evidence of them having an affair.) And then there’s a magical gun that imparts immortality in a two-step process that never really gets explained; not to mention, the gun never actually or metaphorically goes off and plays any importance to the plot.
The main chunk of the book just has some of the weirdest plot points that I just had to put my head down for a few minutes because my brain started hurting from trying to unravel it. For example, Phillips is accused of murdering Miranda’s father by the FBI! Oh no! Except that this plot thread makes NO FREAKING SENSE because it’s outright stated that Phillips wasn’t even in the same state at the time of the murder. I just…what? And their reasoning is that “Oh, well you broke into the funeral home and touched the body! And now the body’s gone!” I…look, lock him up for breaking and entering then. And then we find out that John Dee is possessing Miranda’s father, which NOBODY QUESTIONS. NOBODY. Apparently the only three people in town who recognize the former Mr. Blackwood are Miranda, the town sheriff and the guy who runs the liquor store. I mean, the police are going to investigate all of the missing people, right? No? You’re just going to let them go off to the Blackwood house and nobody is going to question why the dead guy who is well known around town is suddenly walking around and missing a very distinctive birthmark? And let them put on a play? (Yes, this is the climax of the book. The antagonists hold a ceremony at the local town play.)
(And again, the historical fail with a nice heaping pile of DO NOT WANT is that John Dee was apparently in love with Miranda’s ancestor, Mary Blackwood, and thinks that Miranda is her reincarnated. And hits on Miranda while in her father’s body.
Yeah. I'm going let that sit here.)
And to defeat the evil John Dee, Miranda’s big grand solution is to have her father walk into the ocean and drown, because her family’s curse stipulates that a Blackwood can never leave the island. Which 1. Shouldn’t work because Dee’s proven that he can jump into other bodies at will, and 2. Apparently, having the snake birthmark means that Miranda now has the curse, so would that mean her dad is wandering the ocean floor forever until he’s depressurized? Not the immortality gun which Miranda does tamper with, it just does nothing in the climax.
The thing is, I would have given a lot of this book a free pass, because I did genuinely like the characters. Both Miranda and Phillips do err on the side of bland a lot of the time—she’s a small town girl who wants more than her dead end life; he’s the charming troublemaker with a heart of gold (and a daaaark secret). But I found both of them to be endearing and funny and I love that the two have instant chemistry with one another. I really liked Phillips’s relationship with his parents—yes, even though he caused hell for them so he could get away from the voices of Roanoke, they still care a lot for Phillips. Plus I think it does say a lot about how much his father really trusts Phillips to bring him home to help with the new disappearances. The fact that Phillips’s parents know about his psychic abilities is actually a welcome change in most of the YA paranormal I’ve read; they might not believe in it 100% but they acknowledge it exists, their son has to live with this and they’re willing to help him. (Which goes right out the window whenever the murder charges show up, because no, really, that’s the stupidest accusation in the whole book and Phillips’s parents would damn well know firsthand that it’s stupid.)
As I said in the beginning, there was a lot to this book that I was looking forward to. I liked the concept even if my inner history geek was crying in corner and I really liked the main characters. But…look. I can handwave a lot of things if there’s good plotting that makes sense within the book’s context. I have no idea what happened to the plot in this book. The way things are explained and revealed seem so happenstance and it comes out of nowhere, and the way Bond introduces conflict is kind of insulting to the parties involved. (Seriously, the whole making Phillips a fugitive. What was that. You had a perfectly good reason to lock him up, we didn’t need murder charges.) The ending has a plot hole big enough to drive an eighteen wheeler through it.
I really don’t want to say that “Oh, well, the reason I never picked up Gwenda Bond before is that my instincts are right!” but I am less curious to check out Woken Gods. I do want to see what else she can do, but I think it’s going to take a lot more for me to check out her books now.