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A review by jscarpa14
Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink
3.0
***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***
The story within the Prophecy of the Sisters shows a lot of promise. The idea is awesome to be sure. It's the I guess you'd say writing style itself where the problems in this story lie.
The first few chapters are hard to get into at all, what mostly keeps you turning the pages in the first 40 pages or so is the fact that you spent money on the novel and it does have some teases of an interesting story. It does put questions in your mind and despite the awkwardness of the telling, you do in fact want to know more.
The story takes place in New York in the year 1890 and begins at the funeral of Lia's and Alice's father. I follow with the way the girl thinks and speaks it's probably fairly close to how a real person would think and speak in that era. HOWEVER, Zink's readers aren't from that era, so I think the first mistake she makes in the telling of this story was to write it in the first person. With it being written in the first person the reader never gets a break from that slow, reserved pace or wording that of course seems alien and awkward to them. If she'd told this story in a third person she would still have the ability to share Lia's thoughts and feeling with us, however the description in between could have been more modern and pacing therefore could have been a little faster which is something the book really needed. Not to mention the reader might have gotten an idea of Alice more as a character than just her monster sister. For a story of this magnitude, mystery and danger, the pacing needed to be a whole lot faster. The third major mistake I think she makes with this story beyond POV and Pacing is verb tense. While she does occasionally use the past tense verbs most readers are used to seeing most of the time her verbs are in the present tense. I'm not saying it's wrong to use present tense verbs, I'm saying that because most of what we read is written in the past tense when you start reading a story in the present tense it seems awkward and it does make it a little difficult to read. The more awkward is it to read a story, the harder it becomes to relate to the characters and find the wonderful plot within. This is why you'd don't see teenagers picking up Shakespeare outside of an English class to read for fun. No one would ever deny that his story lines are excellent, if they weren't they wouldn't be able to keep remaking movie after blockbuster movie loosely based on the plots of his plays. The reason everyone but an English major avoid reading Shakespeare for pleasure is weeding your way through all the unfamiliar old English makes it harder to find the plot with and relate to the characters.
That having been said, as with Shakespeare, Zink's story is excellent. Were it not for the wording decisions slowing down the pacing this would be a book you'd never want to put down. Within Lia you see her begin as the quiet, calm one who never does anything wrong but sneak off to meet the man she might one day marry and exchange a few stolen kisses. And the thing with that is since her father approved of the match and wasn't as cloistered and rigid as others in his time she still wasn't doing all that much wrong. And as she unravels the prophecy and finds her place within it you see her become stronger, bolder and more prepared to do what needs to be done to save the world from the Apocalypse. She seems a little one dimensional at first but the further you get into the story the more she fleshes out and the more you want to root for her.
Unfortunately in the first person it's very difficult to flesh out other characters beyond the narrator of the story because you can only see the characters through one person's eyes. While her other characters do achieve a little depth by the end of the story, for the most part Zink wasn't able to achieve really depth and believability to any character beyond Lia. You'd see glimpse here and there to some outer character depth, which makes me believe that Zink had in her mind fully fleshed out characters, but with the point of view, old fashioned wording etc, she just wasn't able to bring that to the page. Some of her characters I think could have been cut all together, for example Lia's betrothed James, he wasn't in the story enough for there to be a point in his character other than the idea of creating more angst in her life because she didn't want to tell him about the prophecy, about what she was, and about the choice and destiny on her shoulders. In some ways she wondered if he'd reject her, in others she didn't feel it was right to involve him. Unless James comes into some more play in later stories I really don't see the point in his character at all.
Despite my criticisms of Zink's book if you are the type of reader who can get past slow pacing and uncomfortable language the story is worth reading and I would recommend it. I do intend to read the rest of Michelle Zink's series. With such a wonderful idea from her and a wonderful story I can't help but expect the her writing skills will only get better with each story and I look forward to reading more of her work.
The story within the Prophecy of the Sisters shows a lot of promise. The idea is awesome to be sure. It's the I guess you'd say writing style itself where the problems in this story lie.
The first few chapters are hard to get into at all, what mostly keeps you turning the pages in the first 40 pages or so is the fact that you spent money on the novel and it does have some teases of an interesting story. It does put questions in your mind and despite the awkwardness of the telling, you do in fact want to know more.
The story takes place in New York in the year 1890 and begins at the funeral of Lia's and Alice's father. I follow with the way the girl thinks and speaks it's probably fairly close to how a real person would think and speak in that era. HOWEVER, Zink's readers aren't from that era, so I think the first mistake she makes in the telling of this story was to write it in the first person. With it being written in the first person the reader never gets a break from that slow, reserved pace or wording that of course seems alien and awkward to them. If she'd told this story in a third person she would still have the ability to share Lia's thoughts and feeling with us, however the description in between could have been more modern and pacing therefore could have been a little faster which is something the book really needed. Not to mention the reader might have gotten an idea of Alice more as a character than just her monster sister. For a story of this magnitude, mystery and danger, the pacing needed to be a whole lot faster. The third major mistake I think she makes with this story beyond POV and Pacing is verb tense. While she does occasionally use the past tense verbs most readers are used to seeing most of the time her verbs are in the present tense. I'm not saying it's wrong to use present tense verbs, I'm saying that because most of what we read is written in the past tense when you start reading a story in the present tense it seems awkward and it does make it a little difficult to read. The more awkward is it to read a story, the harder it becomes to relate to the characters and find the wonderful plot within. This is why you'd don't see teenagers picking up Shakespeare outside of an English class to read for fun. No one would ever deny that his story lines are excellent, if they weren't they wouldn't be able to keep remaking movie after blockbuster movie loosely based on the plots of his plays. The reason everyone but an English major avoid reading Shakespeare for pleasure is weeding your way through all the unfamiliar old English makes it harder to find the plot with and relate to the characters.
That having been said, as with Shakespeare, Zink's story is excellent. Were it not for the wording decisions slowing down the pacing this would be a book you'd never want to put down. Within Lia you see her begin as the quiet, calm one who never does anything wrong but sneak off to meet the man she might one day marry and exchange a few stolen kisses. And the thing with that is since her father approved of the match and wasn't as cloistered and rigid as others in his time she still wasn't doing all that much wrong. And as she unravels the prophecy and finds her place within it you see her become stronger, bolder and more prepared to do what needs to be done to save the world from the Apocalypse. She seems a little one dimensional at first but the further you get into the story the more she fleshes out and the more you want to root for her.
Unfortunately in the first person it's very difficult to flesh out other characters beyond the narrator of the story because you can only see the characters through one person's eyes. While her other characters do achieve a little depth by the end of the story, for the most part Zink wasn't able to achieve really depth and believability to any character beyond Lia. You'd see glimpse here and there to some outer character depth, which makes me believe that Zink had in her mind fully fleshed out characters, but with the point of view, old fashioned wording etc, she just wasn't able to bring that to the page. Some of her characters I think could have been cut all together, for example Lia's betrothed James, he wasn't in the story enough for there to be a point in his character other than the idea of creating more angst in her life because she didn't want to tell him about the prophecy, about what she was, and about the choice and destiny on her shoulders. In some ways she wondered if he'd reject her, in others she didn't feel it was right to involve him. Unless James comes into some more play in later stories I really don't see the point in his character at all.
Despite my criticisms of Zink's book if you are the type of reader who can get past slow pacing and uncomfortable language the story is worth reading and I would recommend it. I do intend to read the rest of Michelle Zink's series. With such a wonderful idea from her and a wonderful story I can't help but expect the her writing skills will only get better with each story and I look forward to reading more of her work.