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bonnybonnybooks 's review for:
Unspoken
by Sarah Rees Brennan
Things Brennan does really well: witty, breezy dialogue; fresh, fun characters; atmosphere of a (creepy) English village.
Things Brennan does not do really well: scene transitions (was it explained when and why the Scooby Gang decided to break into the hotel to uncover the guest list, or did I just miss it?), big fight scenes, villains, romance.
Brennan really needs to just do a straight-up comedy of manners or parody or something. She does light, frothy, deadpan dialogue like nobody's business. It's funny, it's clever, it's amusing. But when it has to get serious, she's in trouble.
Kami as a lighter-less-angtsy Veronica Mars is great - Kami trying to wrestle with her connection to Jared is a pain in the ass. Maybe people were wrong in thinking she was possibly schizophrenic for talking to her "imaginary" friend far past childhood, but she certainly is schizophrenic when it comes to how she reacts to him. I can get being initially weirded out to find out the guy you thought you made up is real, flesh-and-blood and going to your school. But you need to come to terms with that and decide how you're going to behave going forward. Instead, Kami is all "I don't trust anyone as much as I trust you!" and "I know you better than anybody!" but at the same time is all "well, you might be a serial killer I DON'T KNOW FOR SURE" and "God, I wish you would get out of my head IT IS SO CREEPY WE ARE PSYCHIC BUDDIES." Look, Kami. You are either all in or you're not. You either trust him or you don't. Stop jerking the poor boy around, using him as a convenient rescue while making the boy feel just as worthless and potentially dangerous as he (incorrectly) believes he is. He obviously desparately needs someone to believe in him, and he's all but begging Kami to be that person. And she is. Sometimes. Except when she isn't. And it's unbelievably cruel especially since she knows - better than anyone - who he truly is and how much he beats himself up. I can't root for the two of them as a couple until she's in his corner, always.
The Lynburn secret was also way less exciting than I'd hoped. When the truth about the Lynburns came out I was pretty disappointed. I thought it would be...more. Truthfully, I was thinking along the lines of some ancient gods or Old Ones or something - maybe I have seen too many things like the Supernatural episode "Scarecrow", where the townspeople have to perform a human sacrifice every year to make the gods bless their town with prosperity.
And the Big Bad was also underwhelming, to say the least. In the climax, Big Bad is winning handedly. Big Bad could wipe out everyone that knew BB's evil plans in one blow - the Scooby Gang is almost literally powerless to stop the villain. And then...BB walks away. Why? BB is all, "I will deal with you later if you continue to plague me." BB just got...lazy??? Tired?? Bored???? BB had no problem slaughtering people, so it's not like BB suddenly got a case of the morals. What seemed to happen was that Brennan could produce a deus ex machina in the form of a more powerful ally to suddenly appear and save the heros or she could have it in the form of the villain giving up for no goddamn reason, and she chose the latter. She didn't give the heroes a chance to properly empower themselves/fight back. Which seemed spectacularly lame. Guess I have to content myself with the witty dialogue.
Things Brennan does not do really well: scene transitions (was it explained when and why the Scooby Gang decided to break into the hotel to uncover the guest list, or did I just miss it?), big fight scenes, villains, romance.
Brennan really needs to just do a straight-up comedy of manners or parody or something. She does light, frothy, deadpan dialogue like nobody's business. It's funny, it's clever, it's amusing. But when it has to get serious, she's in trouble.
Kami as a lighter-less-angtsy Veronica Mars is great - Kami trying to wrestle with her connection to Jared is a pain in the ass. Maybe people were wrong in thinking she was possibly schizophrenic for talking to her "imaginary" friend far past childhood, but she certainly is schizophrenic when it comes to how she reacts to him. I can get being initially weirded out to find out the guy you thought you made up is real, flesh-and-blood and going to your school. But you need to come to terms with that and decide how you're going to behave going forward. Instead, Kami is all "I don't trust anyone as much as I trust you!" and "I know you better than anybody!" but at the same time is all "well, you might be a serial killer I DON'T KNOW FOR SURE" and "God, I wish you would get out of my head IT IS SO CREEPY WE ARE PSYCHIC BUDDIES." Look, Kami. You are either all in or you're not. You either trust him or you don't. Stop jerking the poor boy around, using him as a convenient rescue while making the boy feel just as worthless and potentially dangerous as he (incorrectly) believes he is. He obviously desparately needs someone to believe in him, and he's all but begging Kami to be that person. And she is. Sometimes. Except when she isn't. And it's unbelievably cruel especially since she knows - better than anyone - who he truly is and how much he beats himself up. I can't root for the two of them as a couple until she's in his corner, always.
The Lynburn secret was also way less exciting than I'd hoped. When the truth about the Lynburns came out I was pretty disappointed. I thought it would be...more. Truthfully, I was thinking along the lines of some ancient gods or Old Ones or something - maybe I have seen too many things like the Supernatural episode "Scarecrow", where the townspeople have to perform a human sacrifice every year to make the gods bless their town with prosperity.
And the Big Bad was also underwhelming, to say the least. In the climax, Big Bad is winning handedly. Big Bad could wipe out everyone that knew BB's evil plans in one blow - the Scooby Gang is almost literally powerless to stop the villain. And then...BB walks away. Why? BB is all, "I will deal with you later if you continue to plague me." BB just got...lazy??? Tired?? Bored???? BB had no problem slaughtering people, so it's not like BB suddenly got a case of the morals. What seemed to happen was that Brennan could produce a deus ex machina in the form of a more powerful ally to suddenly appear and save the heros or she could have it in the form of the villain giving up for no goddamn reason, and she chose the latter. She didn't give the heroes a chance to properly empower themselves/fight back. Which seemed spectacularly lame. Guess I have to content myself with the witty dialogue.