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A review by taylesium
The Eighth Guardian by Meredith McCardle
3.0
I devoured this book pretty quickly, and enjoyed the experience, but right now I'm not sure whether I'll reread it or go looking for the next book. Basically, I found it to be a good story, with an interesting premise, lots of action, and some character development, but it had two critical problems my perspective.
The first problem was that I didn't really like any of the characters that saw much development. The main character seemed to alternate between being cock-sure and being an emotional basket-case. Maybe this was intended to be a believable portrayal of a teenager in crisis, but she would have been more sympathetic (and still believable) if she'd demonstrated redeeming traits throughout. Other characters were similarly difficult to sympathize with, and I think I'm left with Alpha as my dark horse favourite. Seems like it might be difficult to work him into future books so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to show up, but with a time-travel story you never know....
My second problem was with how the time-travelling was handled. The problem of paradoxes was basically ignored, the effects of changing their own pasts were kept very vague and inconsistent, and everything was handled as simply as possible. Compared to the Chrono Guard in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books, for example, the way the Annum Guard was handled just seemed a little too simplistic.
Overall, I wasn't blown away by this book, but I didn't hate it either. Whether or not I try to read any more might depend on what people have to say about how the author further develops the characters and the time-travelling premise.
The first problem was that I didn't really like any of the characters that saw much development. The main character seemed to alternate between being cock-sure and being an emotional basket-case. Maybe this was intended to be a believable portrayal of a teenager in crisis, but she would have been more sympathetic (and still believable) if she'd demonstrated redeeming traits throughout. Other characters were similarly difficult to sympathize with, and I think I'm left with Alpha as my dark horse favourite. Seems like it might be difficult to work him into future books so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to show up, but with a time-travel story you never know....
My second problem was with how the time-travelling was handled. The problem of paradoxes was basically ignored, the effects of changing their own pasts were kept very vague and inconsistent, and everything was handled as simply as possible. Compared to the Chrono Guard in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books, for example, the way the Annum Guard was handled just seemed a little too simplistic.
Overall, I wasn't blown away by this book, but I didn't hate it either. Whether or not I try to read any more might depend on what people have to say about how the author further develops the characters and the time-travelling premise.