illegible_scribble
4/5/2017
WTF.
This is the story of two children who've each had magical experiences who become friends of a sort, which then fast-forwards to them as adult friends with magical abilities.
I've read so many rave reviews of this book (and it got a Nebula nomination), that I decided it was one of the handful of novels I could work into my reading before Hugo nominations close.
And I'm just... stunned. I'm wondering what it is that all those people see, that I'm not seeing.
I read past 20% (approx. 65 pages) of the book, and then I finally just had to stop. This reads like someone is attempting write like T. Kingfisher. Except that I would characterize the style of this book as "twee" -- which is not a word I have ever considered using to describe T. Kingfisher's stories.
I went looking for some reviews of it. One person described it as "YA for adults". Not only do I not think it's for adults, frankly, if I'd read this when I was 10 years old, I don't think I would have finished it then, either.
It's possible that I just picked this novel up at the wrong time for me to enjoy it (but there aren't any circumstances in my life right now which would make me not receptive to a book, other than my own tastes). It's possible that it gets much better when it gets to the part where the two main characters are now adults. But honestly, if a book has me checking the percentage progress every other page to see if I've reached a point where I feel that I can quit in good conscience, and at 65 pages I'm still thinking "really? REALLY??? This is what people are raving about???", then it's a failure for me as a book.
Your mileage may vary.