★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A Face Like Glass
Frances Hardinge
Ebook, aprox. 490 pages

In the underground city of Caverna the world's most skilled craftsmen toil in the darkness to create delicacies beyond compare. They create wines that can remove memories, cheeses that can make you hallucinate and perfumes that convince you to trust the wearer even as they slit your throat. The people of Caverna are more ordinary, but for one thing: their faces are as blank as untouched snow. Expressions must be learned. Only the famous Facesmiths can teach a person to show (or fake) joy, despair or fear — at a price.

Into this dark and distrustful world comes Neverfell, a little girl with no memory of her past and a face so terrifying to those around her that she must wear a mask at all times. For Neverfell's emotions are as obvious on her face as those of the most skilled Facesmiths, though entirely genuine. And that makes her very dangerous indeed...

Why did I read this book?
A world where facial expressions need to be learned, otherwise people's faces are always blank? How brilliant is that? That's all it took to get me interested in the book. I think I might have seen it recommended somewhere... but at this point I really can't remember.

1. Plot
Once upon a time, in an underground city where people were naturally unable to show facial expressions, there was a girl named Neverfell whose face was incredibly expressive. She'd always lived with her adoptive father, an old cheesemaker, in a secluded part of this aforementioned underground city, but one day she found a way out of his tunnels... and escaped into the big bad world outside. Mind you, I'm using outside as a relative term - she escapes the cheesemaker's tunnels to find larger, public tunnels, that's what I mean. She meets friendly nobles and unfriendly nobles, wins the favor of half of The Grand Steward (it's... complicated, I'll get there in a second), becomes his favorite food taster, spends half the book running and hiding, and eventually decides to save the poor and the oppressed by making them climb a rope ladder up into the Overground. Note, the Overground really is outside. It's where you and I live, with sky and birds and sunlight.

The plot twists and turns and I will admit it was hard, at times, to tell friend from foe, but then it got too caught up in court politics and I lost interest. And maybe even that isn't completely true, because I don't think I ever truly gained interest. Let me tell you something. 31 users on Goodreads have shelved this book as "Childrens > Middle Grade", while 51 users have shelved it as "Young Adult", and either way, it’s definitely too young for me. The stakes are high, true, but the author has a way of plucking our protagonist from trouble in the most Deus Ex Machina of ways ("and at that precise moment someone walked in"), to a point where I stop caring because I know she'll make it out, no matter what happens. Now, I understand this is probably what writers want to give a younger target audience, a little bit of hope, a little bit of "there's always a way out"... but I'm an older, slightly cynical reader, and it didn't work for me.

2. Characters
Our protagonist, Neverfell, is really young and hopeful and clumsy, and I can see why she's headlining this book. I couldn't empathise with her, though, because I kept snapping out of the story due to her jumbled thoughts. In a way, I felt like her "strangeness" and "craziness" were nothing but excuses to have Neverfell do these incredible deductions that make no sense in context, but are needed to move the plot along.

There are many other relevant characters, but I won’t get into them. What I will say, though, is that, in general, I didn't think there was much character development. The characters didn’t really grow throughout the book, except when the plot needed them to reveal themselves as hidden villains or allies – then, they’d sort of “snap” and become a different person altogether.

There is an honorable mention, though, for The Grand Steward of Caverna. In Frances Hardinge's own words, from her website, "the two halves of his brain take it in turn to sleep, so that one of them is always awake [...] one is cold, curt and does not suffer fools gladly, while the other is mute and unpredictable, communicating only in gestures". This, in my opinion, was all it took to create one of the most interesting, not to mention tragic, characters I've read in a while. It's bad enough when two halves of the brain work different shifts - it gets worse when they start thinking of each other as enemies.

3. Setting/worldbuilding
The setting is, by far, the best thing about this book. Hardinge explores various implications of the whole expressions-must-be-taught scenario, from the difficulties in everyday communication (you can’t tell what people are thinking, you’re never sure they’re not lying to you, you may not have the right face to portray what you’re feeling so you’ll have to approximate with an expression that may not be quite right) to the classist implications of not teaching the exploited workers any unhappy faces (since their expressions are all neutral, they’re unable to show anger or exhaustion, which in turn prompts the nobles to treat them as robots and push them further).

I also liked the magical side of Caverna – the underground city is very much part of the real world you and I live in, but you see, people have discovered some sort of magic that allows them to create True Delicacies. These include wines able to erase or recover memories, cheeses that bring visions of the future, and perfumes that influence social interactions. There is a whole range of magical artifacts that can be used to further the plot, and Hardinge makes use of all of them.

4. Writing style
I underlined maybe one passage, so style-wise, we can say I found this book unremarkable - but again, considering the target audience, I think it does the job just fine. The first half could have been shortened, though. As is, it’s too slow to build up, which then leaves only the second half to develop and wrap up the whole plot. A little more balance would have been great.

Long story short...
I did not dislike this book. It lacks the sharp edges and grey moralities that make me boost ratings around here, but it's not fair to demand that from a book that's somewhere between middle grade and YA. Were I a few years younger, perhaps ten years younger, I think I would have loved this – but alas, today, it will only get three stars.

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★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Melancholy Of Anatomy
Shelley Jackson
Ebook, aprox. 200 pages

Amusing, touching, and unsettling, The Melancholy Of Anatomy is that most wonderful of fictions, one that makes us see the world in an entirely new light. Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes through its underground pipes; gobs of phlegm cement friendships and sexual relationships; and a floating fetus larger than a human becomes the new town pastor. In this debut story collection, Shelley Jackson rewrites our private passages, and translates the dumb show of the body into prose as gorgeous as it is unhygienic.

Why did I read this book? First, the title-cover combo did the job of getting my attention. Then, the blurb struck me as very experimental, perhaps even a little pretentious. I googled Shelley Jackson, found her novel Half Life, and realised she was probably the kind of writer my bookshelf would like to be friends with.

I was right. The Melancholy Of Anatomy might just be the most original book I've ever read. It's a short story collection, which opens with a short short piece titled Heart before splitting into four sections, according to the four temperaments: Choleric brings us Egg, Sperm, and Foetus; Melancholic delivers Cancer, Nerve, and Dildo; Phlegmatic is composed of Phlegm, Hair, and Sleep; and Sanguine closes the show with Blood, Milk, and Fat.

Style-wise, Jackson is just the kind of writer I like - her words are beautiful and intricate, but they never overpower her content. It would be easy to file something this experimental under the good old "style and no substance" category, but there's a moment in every single one of Jackson's stories where you just can't pretend you're reading mindless surrealism. I've read short stories by Haruki Murakami, and those, I had to make peace with - sometimes, they really don't make any sense. But Jackson's stories do. Foetuses float and cities menstruate, but the people who inhabit this world are very much like the people who inhabit our own - their struggles are our struggles, sometimes oversimplified, sometimes exaggerated. Sure, they obsess over eggs and fall in love with nerve bundles, but so do we. They exchange bodily fluids to ascertain relationships, so do we. They try to keep their houses and cities squeaky clean, sterile, so do we. They battle blood and fat and their own organic fluids. So do we.

Coming as no surprise, considering the references I just made, my favorite stories of the bunch were Nerve and Blood, which were incredibly bittersweet, and tremendously well thought out, respectively. Besides those, Heart, Foetus, Cancer, and Fat will stay with me for a really, really long time. There was just one little thing I could have lived without, and that was Phlegm. A reviewer on Goodreads stated she "could not read [it] all the way through because it made [her] want to cry and die", and I have to agree. I made it through the whole thing relatively unharmed, and I did find the human element of the story very good, but gods, why phlegm. Why.

I was fully convinced, then and there, that Shelley Jackson doesn't give a damn about her reader's comfort, and I love her for it. This is a surreal, sometimes gross, sometimes shocking book. But it's also one of the most honest takes on the human condition (with all its strange fluids and organic mishaps) that I've ever read, and for that, it gets four stars. Probably five in three months, when I look back and realise I haven't stopped thinking about it. Go read it!

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★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Angelopolis
Danielle Trussoni
Ebook, aprox. 320 pages

A decade has passed since Verlaine saw Evangeline alight from the Brooklyn Bridge, the sight of her new wings a betrayal that haunts him still. Now an elite angel hunter for the Society of Angelology, he pursues his mission with single-minded devotion: to capture, imprison, and eliminate her kind.

But when Evangeline suddenly appears on a twilit Paris street, Verlaine finds her nature to be unlike any of the other creatures he so mercilessly pursues, casting him into a spiral of doubt and confusion that only grows when she is abducted before his eyes by a creature who has topped the society’s most-wanted list for more than a century. The ensuing chase drives Verlaine and his fellow angelologists from the shadows of the Eiffel Tower to the palaces of St. Petersburg and deep into the provinces of Siberia and the Black Sea coast, where the truth of Evangeline’s origins — as well as forces that could restore or annihilate them all—lie in wait.

Why did I read this book?
I am a bit of an angel fangirl, I have my own angel books to publish one day (hopefully) and I read Angelology back when it came out in 2010. I was... disappointed, to say the least, but alas, I have a slightly masochistic streak that makes me want to give bad books a second chance.

So, Angelology had quite a few flaws - three different POVs in three different timelines, a terrible love story, and a final twist that caught exactly no one by surprise. I was hoping Angelopolis would correct some of these flaws, and while it did... it also created some new, equally bad ones. Let me walk you through them.

1. Plot
From what I gather, this book has one main plot point and that is... Verlaine, who is now an angel hunter, needs/wants to find Evangeline. Why? Well, let’s see if I can explain it. Professionally, he needs to find her so he can kill her, but personally, he spends half the book yapping about how important she is to him even though they haven’t seen each other or communicated in any way in over ten years. Besides, let me remind you all that Angelology ended with Evangeline perched on a bridge opening her plot twisty angel wings, and Verlaine looking at her from below, in complete despair because that meant the end of their love story, even though they’d known each other for 48 hours.

I have a very big problem with this. Evangeline was the main character in the first book, so why was she only given 2-3 pages of “screentime” in this one? Why did the author decide to transform her just-turned-Nephilim (that's a human/angel hybrid, for the uninitiated) main character into a plot device to fuel Verlaine’s manpain? I would rather have read about Evangeline’s transformation. How does this woman cope with life as a Nephilim when the events of the first book have taught her to fear them above all else? How does she cope with becoming a monster, every inch like the monsters responsible for the eradication of her family? How does she learn to use her new powers? Is he self-taught? Does she make friends among the old Nephilim families? How does this transformation change her, as opposed to how does this transformation change the guy who fell for her in the first book? Personally, I found the POV change rather unsuccessful, simply because it kept a curtain between me and the things I truly wanted to know.

About the plot development itself... it was weak. I’ve told you about Verlaine’s goal, but that goal is nothing but an excuse to unveil conspiracies and historical secrets related to Fabergé eggs (hence the cover), John Dee’s hypothetical talks with angels, a pre-diluvian seed bank, and a Panopticon for angels. I love alternate interpretations of Biblical texts and Christan mythology, I really do, but if your goal is to write entertaining fiction, sometimes you need to know where to hold back the history and focus on the actual story.

2. Characters
I’ve mentioned that Angelology, this book’s predecessor, commited the grave mistake of telling three different stories in three different timelines – two of those timelines were much more interesting than the others, and it just so happened that the least interesting of all was the contemporary timeline, the one where Evangeline and Verlaine meet. Why? Well, because the characters couldn’t keep me interested.

So let me tell you, if the characters were bad in Angelology, you don’t want to hear about Angelopolis. Here, characters are nothing but names and physical descriptions – they sit around, they talk, sometimes they act, but they never really feel, and the same goes for me. It’s hard for me to stay interested in a book if I can’t connect with at least one of the characters, and these people were nothing but walking, talking textbooks. Their motivations, when not strictly professional, were a mystery to me – and let’s be honest, even if we assume their motivations were all strictly professional, who wants to read a book about people robotically doing their jobs?

3. Setting/worldbuilding
Now, if there's one thing Danielle Trussoni is good at, is creating ambiance. From dark alleys in Paris to antique shops in St. Petersburg, from barren landscapes seen through the windows of the trans-siberian to greenhouses in Bulgaria filled with nothing but pre-diluvian plants... when Danielle Trussoni writes it, I can imagine myself there. The problem is... well, ambiance doesn't sell books unless you're Angela Carter (and your characters have a personality).

Apart from that, my biggest setting-related complaint goes to the way the author has chosen to frame her Nephilim. Back in 2010, I described this setting as "Nephilim are real and live undercover in their big-ass NYC penthouses" and "they're obnoxiously rich and throw parties round the clock and are responsible for all the evil in the world". This is all fine and dandy, more than fine and dandy, but the problem, I think, is that Danielle Trussoni doesn't know where to stop - if, in the first book, the Nephilim were connected to everyone from Adolf Hitler to Karl Marx, and I thought that was over the top, now they're also connected to the whole Romanov dynasty and Coco Chanel. Oh, and Jesus was a Nephilim too. We've gone from "interesting take on historical details" to full on conspiracy theory.


By now you all probably know I am a hardcore defender of the entertainment value of shows like Ancient Aliens, so... skip this book, go watch Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and his pyramid theories instead.

4. Writing style
I do remember liking, perhaps even loving the writing style in Angelology, but sadly, I didn’t feel that same wow factor in this book. While I have complimented the author’s ability to create ambiance and describe a setting to create a mood, the rest of the writing was definitely lackluster. The dialogues were wooden and unnatural - though perhaps we can consider that an unfortunate consequence of having only academic-type characters infodumping around coffee tables -, and the biggest chunk of writing was dedicated to exposition as opposed to character development and, you know, actual action.

Long story short...
Angelopolis is a disappointment. It doesn't live up to its already flawed predecessor, and it tries really hard to pave the way for a hypothetical third installment where, I assume, all hell will break loose and Evangeline and Verlaine will lead opposing factions into battle. It gets two stars from me, and before you ask... yes, yes, I'm pretty sure I'll still read the third one.

I have a slightly masochistic streak that makes me want to give bad books a third chance.

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★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Pacific Rim: The Official Movie Novelization
Alex Irvine
Ebook, aprox. 270 pages

When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju.

On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot and an untested trainee - who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind's last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

I know, I know, so many good books in the world and here I am reviewing a movie novelization, shame on me. Well, at least we all know who to blame.



And perhaps we should add Tacit Ronin to the list too, since it's my favorite Jaeger of all time. It's my inner bug enthusiast, I look at it and all I see is a massive praying mantis.



But anyway, to the book! I won't write an exhaustive review, because most of us have watched the movie and know all about the plot, the characters, and the worldbuilding - there's no use in repeating all of that! Now, I chose to read this novelization because Pacific Rim really did grow on me over the past year. If at first I was a little disappointed in the movie (not enough robots, I said over and over again, not enough robots), as soon as I rewatched it, I was dragged into the hype all over again. I just couldn't stop thinking about the nearly unlimited potential of this Jaeger/Kaiju concept. I might have read 90% of the Wiki in a couple of days. And then, because my thirst for knowledge and backstory was so strong, I decided to read the book. Aaaaaaand I was disappointed.

This book's main problem is the writing style. Raleigh Beckett acts as our POV character, and I'll be honest, he's quite entertaining and witty at first. There are lots of little side notes and in-jokes that make the book a lot of fun, even if you've just finished watching the movie. The problem is that... it doesn't last. After a few dozen pages, the book goes downhill, quickly turning into, to put it simply, a step-by-step description of the movie. I don't know what's the usual modus operandi for writing novelizations, but it seriously seems like the author sat in a movie theatre, watched Pacific Rim, and described everything he saw on the screen. Then, to make people pay for the book, he scattered about a few extra tidbits. Profit!

The implications of this are really bad. You see, I don't like using the old show/tell comparison, because I don't think it holds all the time, but I'll have to use it here - this book is nothing but tell. There's no emotion. The characters have no inner lives. There are no risks, no challenges, and there's no causality from one action to the other. Imagine Striker Eureka punching a Kaiju on screen. The book will say "Striker Eureka punched a Kaiju". It's just... not good enough. Oh, and there's no character development either.

The other big problem here is that the book has no structure. It doesn't even look like something that's been planned - the author jumps from major scene to major scene without bothering to set things up or pad the events. One minute two Jaegers have been lost, next minute we're running all the way to the Breach with a bomb strapped to Striker's back. About the aforementioned tidbits of extra information, I'd just like to say... I wanted to learn more about the side characters (Tendo Choi, the Wei triplets, the Kaidanovskys, maybe even Pentecost?), but the extra info I did get arrived in the shape of "official documents" and newspaper cut-outs. They were mostly worldbuilding extras, really - still interesting, but not quite what I had in mind.

Finally, I'd like to mention the ending. The ending was one of the best parts of Pacific Rim, for me. Why? Well, because the leads didn't kiss, of course! It was a welcome change, and I was really happy with it. Unfortunately, good things never last, and they actually did kiss in the book. I didn't deserve that.

So, let's conclude this. This novelization is not a good novelization, and I think it could have been. Pacific Rim is a movie that relies heavily on the visuals and little on the actual plot - Cherno Alpha taunting the enemy via banging its fists together, the boat sword, the way everyone in the theatre gasped when Otachi opened its wings.... these are moments you can't recreate half as effectively in a book, for obvious reasons, but that still doesn't mean there wasn't anything worth exploring in print. What about Raleigh's trauma after losing his brother, or Pentecost's health problems, or Mako's big damn moment where she finally got to pilot a Jaeger? How did these people feel, throughout the movie? The book could have delved deeper into the inner lives of the characters, instead of simply grazing the surface in a bland retelling of the movie. Besides, the extras really weren't worth it - so I'm giving this a two-star rating.

Now the question is... am I going to read the prequel comic? Probably. I'll most definitely buy the artbook, though.

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