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A review by larabobara
The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson
3.0
I enjoyed this book, but it probably isn't going to be ranked as a favorite. For one thing, it took me a good 75 pages to find myself invested in the story. On top of that, the book made me feel like a bit of an idiot. Admittedly, I wasn't the most stellar history student in the world and haven't had a history lesson since my senior year of high school (I took a college-level course that year through the local community college, and the credits for it later fulfilled my undergraduate history requirement). Still, I kept thinking Scotland was a much wackier place than I'd realized (Ministry of Psychic-whatever? People consider it normal to have seances and mediums there?) and wondering what this Hanseatic League thing was that Scotland was part of, until I realized more aspects of the book were fictionalized than I initially thought. There was an explanation at the back of the book that explained it all, and I quite wished I had read that bit before embarking on the book, because it would have made it all more fun.
HOWEVER. If I take a step away from my own idiocy for a minute, I think this book was extremely creative - and, in some ways, it even felt a little bit like a YA version of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. (Not precisely....but there are still some definite similarities there.) And who doesn't love a spunky, intelligent, inquisitive, brave female protagonist? The story took a lot of interesting turns, and as I mentioned before, if the explanation of the alternate history the author was using had appeared at the beginning of the book, I probably would have given it four stars on goodreads instead of just three. Still, it's a fun read, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
HOWEVER. If I take a step away from my own idiocy for a minute, I think this book was extremely creative - and, in some ways, it even felt a little bit like a YA version of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. (Not precisely....but there are still some definite similarities there.) And who doesn't love a spunky, intelligent, inquisitive, brave female protagonist? The story took a lot of interesting turns, and as I mentioned before, if the explanation of the alternate history the author was using had appeared at the beginning of the book, I probably would have given it four stars on goodreads instead of just three. Still, it's a fun read, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.