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Отвъдземя
by Елена Лорънс, Tahereh Mafi, Tahereh Mafi
I won’t lie that I picked up this book based on the cover – a thing I do more often than I’d care to admit, and boy was I not disappointed.
First of all, this book’s world building is exquisite, and what’s even more exquisite is that you aren’t given all the information all at once; since the characters already know everything about their home, it’s normal that the narration wouldn’t view them thinking about their world in a way they would describe it to an outsider. The pacing is steady, so that when you do find out things, little by little, you are only filled with wonder and a twinge of impatience to find out more and more and more – impatience that is rewarded very soon, but never too soon. Perfect balance. Furthermore itself, as a world, is an absolute delight and a perfect example of abstract thinking and enormous imagination. Everything in it challenges you to think outside the box and go, You know what, that actually does make sense when you look at it from this specific angle… it truly, completely conveys the dangers in delight and the delights in danger, and I really want to have just an encyclopedia of it.
The characters are truly wonderful – each vivid and unique, and above all of course stands our Alice, wonderful Alice who fell down into an unknown world so twisted up and wonderful that we, just like her, have no idea if right is right and left is left. I do wonder if the name Alice was a reference to Alice in Wonderland, considering the plot…? Either way, each step of her journey is so vividly colored with emotion and adventure that your heart races at every moment it should. I found myself having to take a pause at the intense parts, simply because Alice’s distress was so well-conveyed that I felt I had to take a breath myself. Oliver is lovable, wonderful, and along with Alice you learn to love and appreciate him, you learn to get to know him and cherish him and cheer for his future. Both of the kids have marvelous development, so well-written that you don’t even notice until you’ve reached the end and can say, Wow, they’ve changed a lot!
The most skillfully done part, I believe, is the absolute mastery with which Alice’s talent is kept from the readers. You get hints and quips at it, you are told that Alice hates it, you get the sense that it is probably incredible, but you really have absolutely no idea what it could be – or if you have a theory, everything is vague enough so that when it is revealed, somewhere halfway through the book (and the author knows all too well how anticipated the moment is that the narration itself tells you, I know, Sorry for keeping it a secret, you probably have theories don’t you?) you are ecstatic. You want to clap your hands and cheer because it really is absolutely and entirely incredible, even if looking back it should have been obvious, the very fact that it was so masterfully hidden boosts my rating by a thousand.
The ending was so extremely satisfying and so extremely rewarding; there was nothing that made me feel disappointed, nothing that made me feel like I’d wasted my time.
My few very tiny issues were: the fact that I simply want to know what happened to all the characters in Furthermore once they were off-screen (or off-page, as it were), more about the lore of that world because it is massive, and I wish Alice’s mother wasn’t forgiven so easily. I wish Alice had been angrier with her than she was, and I also wish she had some sense to be somewhat angry with her father, but I’m trying to remember that Alice is still very young, and probably sees her parents, as everything else around her, in terms of black and white. Maybe when she gets older, these feelings will be more complicated.
Those things, however, were very small and in no way took away from my enjoyment. Also, there’s more books that seem to take place in the same universe, so who knows! We may just find out everything eventually!
First of all, this book’s world building is exquisite, and what’s even more exquisite is that you aren’t given all the information all at once; since the characters already know everything about their home, it’s normal that the narration wouldn’t view them thinking about their world in a way they would describe it to an outsider. The pacing is steady, so that when you do find out things, little by little, you are only filled with wonder and a twinge of impatience to find out more and more and more – impatience that is rewarded very soon, but never too soon. Perfect balance. Furthermore itself, as a world, is an absolute delight and a perfect example of abstract thinking and enormous imagination. Everything in it challenges you to think outside the box and go, You know what, that actually does make sense when you look at it from this specific angle… it truly, completely conveys the dangers in delight and the delights in danger, and I really want to have just an encyclopedia of it.
The characters are truly wonderful – each vivid and unique, and above all of course stands our Alice, wonderful Alice who fell down into an unknown world so twisted up and wonderful that we, just like her, have no idea if right is right and left is left. I do wonder if the name Alice was a reference to Alice in Wonderland, considering the plot…? Either way, each step of her journey is so vividly colored with emotion and adventure that your heart races at every moment it should. I found myself having to take a pause at the intense parts, simply because Alice’s distress was so well-conveyed that I felt I had to take a breath myself. Oliver is lovable, wonderful, and along with Alice you learn to love and appreciate him, you learn to get to know him and cherish him and cheer for his future. Both of the kids have marvelous development, so well-written that you don’t even notice until you’ve reached the end and can say, Wow, they’ve changed a lot!
The most skillfully done part, I believe, is the absolute mastery with which Alice’s talent is kept from the readers. You get hints and quips at it, you are told that Alice hates it, you get the sense that it is probably incredible, but you really have absolutely no idea what it could be – or if you have a theory, everything is vague enough so that when it is revealed, somewhere halfway through the book (and the author knows all too well how anticipated the moment is that the narration itself tells you, I know, Sorry for keeping it a secret, you probably have theories don’t you?) you are ecstatic. You want to clap your hands and cheer because it really is absolutely and entirely incredible, even if looking back it should have been obvious, the very fact that it was so masterfully hidden boosts my rating by a thousand.
The ending was so extremely satisfying and so extremely rewarding; there was nothing that made me feel disappointed, nothing that made me feel like I’d wasted my time.
My few very tiny issues were: the fact that I simply want to know what happened to all the characters in Furthermore once they were off-screen (or off-page, as it were), more about the lore of that world because it is massive, and I wish Alice’s mother wasn’t forgiven so easily. I wish Alice had been angrier with her than she was, and I also wish she had some sense to be somewhat angry with her father, but I’m trying to remember that Alice is still very young, and probably sees her parents, as everything else around her, in terms of black and white. Maybe when she gets older, these feelings will be more complicated.
Those things, however, were very small and in no way took away from my enjoyment. Also, there’s more books that seem to take place in the same universe, so who knows! We may just find out everything eventually!