Scan barcode
A review by notevenastar
City of the Dead by S.D. Perry
3.0
Ok. I've mentioned at length about how my sudden Resident Evil hyperfixation absolutely wrecked my long streak of romance novel reading. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that an RE novelization would be the next step. And if it's not clear from my fifty-one notes and highlights or my vaugely rabid liveread thread on Twitter, I did truly enjoy this book.
A lot of the reviews of this book seem preoccupied with the plot diversions from the original RE2, which feels a little bit trivial to me. Books and video games are two different mediums and it's often necessary to give more events emphasis so we can see in the heads of the characters experiencing them. And I think the whole A Scenario / B Scenario deal is tough to handle on the page so it makes sense that there are a couple of major differences between this book and the game.
But. I mean. All that said. I can totally see why Capcom hasn't invited SD Perry back to write anymore books after she finished her Resident Evil series.
Mostly, the way this author writes Ada Wong is just so..... awful. Maybe I'm a little bit too enamored with the Ada we're presented in the RE2make, but this book takes a bizarre stance on 1998 Ada. By this, I mean she falls into ridiculous puppy love with Leon and spends a lot of page-time feeling guilty over doing her job and manipulating him. Like. Okay. It goes so against the iconic image of her as a nuanced femme fatale with complete agency over her decisions and emotions. Most iterations of Ada seem to have a soft spot for Leon but still manage to continue with their job. It's strange that the author went the complete opposite direction and turned Ada's quick moments of affection into entire rants about how much she would love to run away with Leon and leave her espionage days behind her. Thematically, I think it's always been important for RE2 Leon to be a complete ingénue with glimmers of worldliness and for Ada to be mostly detached, serving as a major factor for his emotional development into the absolute skank Leon is in RE4. (This is me speaking objectively, of course.) Ugh. So yes, one star off for the un-girlbossification of Ada Wong.
Other than that, I feel like this book is very nearly a four star. The action scenes are done pretty well, and I appreciate the streamlined bits around puzzles and areas of RE2 that would be tedious in a narrative. I adore Claire and Leon, as always, and I enjoyed seeing a little bit of their backstories before the Raccoon City incident. Sherry was also incredibly well-written and avoids the slightly grating "helpless little girl" area she hits in the '98 RE2. She is very small and very capable. I love my daughter.
So yes! I shall not be purchasing anymore Resident Evil novelizations (for now). I haven't finished [b:Love at First|54231816|Love at First|Kate Clayborn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609237177l/54231816._SX50_.jpg|84623334] yet and I feel bad for putting it on hold for a Capcom zombie franchise. That said, this book was an incredibly fun diversion.
A lot of the reviews of this book seem preoccupied with the plot diversions from the original RE2, which feels a little bit trivial to me. Books and video games are two different mediums and it's often necessary to give more events emphasis so we can see in the heads of the characters experiencing them. And I think the whole A Scenario / B Scenario deal is tough to handle on the page so it makes sense that there are a couple of major differences between this book and the game.
But. I mean. All that said. I can totally see why Capcom hasn't invited SD Perry back to write anymore books after she finished her Resident Evil series.
Mostly, the way this author writes Ada Wong is just so..... awful. Maybe I'm a little bit too enamored with the Ada we're presented in the RE2make, but this book takes a bizarre stance on 1998 Ada. By this, I mean she falls into ridiculous puppy love with Leon and spends a lot of page-time feeling guilty over doing her job and manipulating him. Like. Okay. It goes so against the iconic image of her as a nuanced femme fatale with complete agency over her decisions and emotions. Most iterations of Ada seem to have a soft spot for Leon but still manage to continue with their job. It's strange that the author went the complete opposite direction and turned Ada's quick moments of affection into entire rants about how much she would love to run away with Leon and leave her espionage days behind her. Thematically, I think it's always been important for RE2 Leon to be a complete ingénue with glimmers of worldliness and for Ada to be mostly detached, serving as a major factor for his emotional development into the absolute skank Leon is in RE4. (This is me speaking objectively, of course.) Ugh. So yes, one star off for the un-girlbossification of Ada Wong.
Other than that, I feel like this book is very nearly a four star. The action scenes are done pretty well, and I appreciate the streamlined bits around puzzles and areas of RE2 that would be tedious in a narrative. I adore Claire and Leon, as always, and I enjoyed seeing a little bit of their backstories before the Raccoon City incident. Sherry was also incredibly well-written and avoids the slightly grating "helpless little girl" area she hits in the '98 RE2. She is very small and very capable. I love my daughter.
So yes! I shall not be purchasing anymore Resident Evil novelizations (for now). I haven't finished [b:Love at First|54231816|Love at First|Kate Clayborn|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609237177l/54231816._SX50_.jpg|84623334] yet and I feel bad for putting it on hold for a Capcom zombie franchise. That said, this book was an incredibly fun diversion.