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philscottmayes 's review for:
Year One
by Nora Roberts
Some remarks to justify my rating...
The Good: This was a strange reading experience for me. Roberts kicks off this series with a couple of opening chapters that sunk their hooks in deep--really deep. I was helpless. I couldn't stop reading. Even after things took a rather gimmicky detour toward the fantastical, I still found myself very entertained by the story. The opening tone of the story is so bleak, so ominous, so enthralling; it was the collapse of everything and those who survived The Doom would be lucky to survive the post-apocalyptic world it left behind. Roberts isn't afraid to dive into the darkness of human nature--make that inhuman nature--but doesn't do enough exploration into the origin of that darkness for it to be meaningful. Her utilitarian elements of survival in a post-apocalyptic reality are well done, albeit too conveniently satisfied to add any real peril to the story. Eventually, the story delivers hope and takes on a lightness that some readers will be grateful for, but I found a little too cute, too soon.
The Bad: Despite enjoying the story and plowing through it in a week, I would echo some valid criticisms that are mentioned in the thousands of other reviews of this book. This is my first Nora Roberts book, recommended by a friend, and I've heard that this is not her typical technical style. That being said, Roberts's writing style in Year One is laborious to read. Lot's of fragments, lots of comma splices, very little flow. I did get somewhat used to it after the first half of the book, but I still found myself stumbling and occasionally having to reread sentences.
The characters have a certain depth of experience, but lack movement. There is very little character progression, with the exception of Lana (one out of more than a dozen named characters), who finds strength (sort of, but not really), and grows up a little. There is no moral gray in Roberts's characters. They are either wholly good, or wholly evil, with very little complexity.
I often found it difficult to follow the dialogue, as she uses almost no dialogue tags even in scenes with a half-dozen characters speaking. Eventually, I decided it usually didn't matter all that much who was saying what (not a good thing), and stopped reading back to try to figure it out.
She overshoots in her attempts to make the action sequences frenetic and exciting, instead making them sloppy and a little confusing. Perhaps the idea was that if she gave the reader the important fragments, they would paint a picture that was perfectly coherent to them, but this wasn't my experience. Instead, my reading slowed to a crawl as I tried to keep track of who was where and which direction attacks were coming from, but still found it difficult to visualize. On more than one occasion the action ended up feeling rushed and left me dissatisfied when it was over.
In Summary: Modern day fantasy, complete with witches, elves, warlocks, faeries, and more, is not my go-to genre. I had to enjoy this book in spite of those elements...and I did enjoy the book. This is the type of story that comes down to expectations. If you come into it expecting fine art, you're going to be disappointed. If you come into it expecting a hole-free plot, you're going to be disappointed. But, if you come with an open mind and uncritical eye, you will leave entertained. Despite its flaws, I still thoroughly enjoyed the book. If not for that inexplicable fact, I'd probably have given Year One a 2-star rating.
The Good: This was a strange reading experience for me. Roberts kicks off this series with a couple of opening chapters that sunk their hooks in deep--really deep. I was helpless. I couldn't stop reading. Even after things took a rather gimmicky detour toward the fantastical, I still found myself very entertained by the story. The opening tone of the story is so bleak, so ominous, so enthralling; it was the collapse of everything and those who survived The Doom would be lucky to survive the post-apocalyptic world it left behind. Roberts isn't afraid to dive into the darkness of human nature--make that inhuman nature--but doesn't do enough exploration into the origin of that darkness for it to be meaningful. Her utilitarian elements of survival in a post-apocalyptic reality are well done, albeit too conveniently satisfied to add any real peril to the story. Eventually, the story delivers hope and takes on a lightness that some readers will be grateful for, but I found a little too cute, too soon.
The Bad: Despite enjoying the story and plowing through it in a week, I would echo some valid criticisms that are mentioned in the thousands of other reviews of this book. This is my first Nora Roberts book, recommended by a friend, and I've heard that this is not her typical technical style. That being said, Roberts's writing style in Year One is laborious to read. Lot's of fragments, lots of comma splices, very little flow. I did get somewhat used to it after the first half of the book, but I still found myself stumbling and occasionally having to reread sentences.
The characters have a certain depth of experience, but lack movement. There is very little character progression, with the exception of Lana (one out of more than a dozen named characters), who finds strength (sort of, but not really), and grows up a little. There is no moral gray in Roberts's characters. They are either wholly good, or wholly evil, with very little complexity.
I often found it difficult to follow the dialogue, as she uses almost no dialogue tags even in scenes with a half-dozen characters speaking. Eventually, I decided it usually didn't matter all that much who was saying what (not a good thing), and stopped reading back to try to figure it out.
She overshoots in her attempts to make the action sequences frenetic and exciting, instead making them sloppy and a little confusing. Perhaps the idea was that if she gave the reader the important fragments, they would paint a picture that was perfectly coherent to them, but this wasn't my experience. Instead, my reading slowed to a crawl as I tried to keep track of who was where and which direction attacks were coming from, but still found it difficult to visualize. On more than one occasion the action ended up feeling rushed and left me dissatisfied when it was over.
In Summary: Modern day fantasy, complete with witches, elves, warlocks, faeries, and more, is not my go-to genre. I had to enjoy this book in spite of those elements...and I did enjoy the book. This is the type of story that comes down to expectations. If you come into it expecting fine art, you're going to be disappointed. If you come into it expecting a hole-free plot, you're going to be disappointed. But, if you come with an open mind and uncritical eye, you will leave entertained. Despite its flaws, I still thoroughly enjoyed the book. If not for that inexplicable fact, I'd probably have given Year One a 2-star rating.