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vestraegir 's review for:
The Quick
by Lauren Owen
The Quick has left me unsure: it was a book I had set my eyes on for a long time and I can't help but feel simultaneously entertained and disappointed. I hope that writing this review gives me a chance to think it through.
This book helped me find the topic I needed for a final paper I had to write. After getting through 100 pages of it, I arrived at the "twist", felt a sinking feeling in my stomach and put it back on my shelf where it stayed for another 2 months before I had the energy to pick it back up and finish it.
I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about James. For the most part, I like and relate to him. I think he was a really intersting character and I was happy to follow his story. I enjoyed the writing, all of it felt like it was launching into something incredible and I was pulled in.
Then everything sort of goes to shit.
I'm upset at their fate, for several reasons: first,
Moving on to our second protagonist.
I wanted to like Charlotte, but nothing really stood out to me about her that I could latch onto. It felt a little bit like she was meant to be the reader's pity for James, as her character mostly just consists of her motivation to find her brother and not much else. I was saddened by this because the secondary female characters we meet were more interesting and yet got very little time to shine. (Adeline and Liza that is). As the story went on, But I digress.
There were indeed a lot of characters, and I think the main reason people complain about the number is because they were somewhat indistinguishable. I still can't really tell you the difference between the Bier brothers. Or who Makeweight and Corvish are and what they do. I think the Club suffers the most from this problem.
I've given this book 3 stars though, which may seem odd considering the above but I really did enjoy this book even though it lagged and irritated me here and there. I think that there were just so many threads running through it that it was tough to keep track of them all, whilst at the same time getting to the end of a plot that was set up. The end was particularly a bit long and jarring, and we don't see why it's necessary for it to keep going until the very last sentence.
This book helped me find the topic I needed for a final paper I had to write. After getting through 100 pages of it, I arrived at the "twist", felt a sinking feeling in my stomach and put it back on my shelf where it stayed for another 2 months before I had the energy to pick it back up and finish it.
I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about James. For the most part, I like and relate to him. I think he was a really intersting character and I was happy to follow his story. I enjoyed the writing,
Spoiler
the build up to his relationship with ChristopherThen everything sort of goes to shit.
I'm upset at their fate, for several reasons: first,
Spoiler
the gratuitous killing-of-queer-characters-acting-as-a-convienient-plot-device obviously (Got an A+ on that paper because I went on a long winded academic rant), second because James tanks as a character after this first part. His personality seems to get completely wiped. Now if the explanation of this was because of his transformation, then I would fully understand. But he seems to turn drastically odd in a way that doesn't fit the rules of its own world (does his unwilling transformation play a part in his resulted personality? perhaps but we aren't given a clear answer). I think that if you're going to take the time to make us emotionally invested about a character, having him disappear for most of the plot afterwards is a little irritating. The little moments, such as his carrying of the little girl who had recently been drunk from, his behavior at Christopher's funeral, show us glimpses of the James we started with and I so wish there had been more of that and a focus on him dealing with his identity.Moving on to our second protagonist.
I wanted to like Charlotte, but nothing really stood out to me about her that I could latch onto. It felt a little bit like she was meant to be the reader's pity for James, as her character mostly just consists of her motivation to find her brother and not much else. I was saddened by this because the secondary female characters we meet were more interesting and yet got very little time to shine. (Adeline and Liza that is). As the story went on,
Spoiler
I realised we were headed for a romance that involved Charlotte and Howland and yet they both seem... I can't really even describe it. Bland with each other? Even Adeline and Charlotte had more chemistry going.There were indeed a lot of characters, and I think the main reason people complain about the number is because they were somewhat indistinguishable. I still can't really tell you the difference between the Bier brothers. Or who Makeweight and Corvish are and what they do. I think the Club suffers the most from this problem.
I've given this book 3 stars though, which may seem odd considering the above but I really did enjoy this book even though it lagged and irritated me here and there. I think that there were just so many threads running through it that it was tough to keep track of them all, whilst at the same time getting to the end of a plot that was set up. The end was particularly a bit long and jarring, and we don't see why it's necessary for it to keep going until the very last sentence.