Author: Lish McBride
Genre: Urban Fantasy (YA)
Length: 342
Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG-13
I picked up this book because it was about a necromancer. Necromancers are not the most common creatures in Urban Fantasy (or Fantasy in general). That honor of course goes to vampires, and since I am currently working on my own WIP that involves necromancers, I'm trying to read as much as I can the other books about them. Thus, this book. However, I was really hesitant to read it. While in the bookstore I read the first chapter and the voice just really didn't catch me. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the fact that Sam struck me as a slacker (which he is sort of--with good reason), or maybe it was just the fact that it started pretty mundanely at a fast food restaurant. I don't know. But I avoided reading this book for a month after I bought it.
And then the chaos of the semester reached a lull. I met my research deadlines and finally had time to read. I didn't want to buy a new book until I had read this one, so I sat down and made myself read it....
...and finished it a few hours later.
That first impression? The one that said I wouldn't like this book? It was wrong. Dead wrong. This story was fantastic. Sam is a bit of a slacker, but for a reason! He's a complex young man (and though this is YA, Sam is a college-dropout, not a high schooler) and so are his friends. In fact, by the end of the book you still don't know his friends completely. They have their own secrets. The storyline was also surprisingly complex. Though Sam's perspective is written in first person, there are other POV characters (and their sections are written in third person).
A basic plot summary: Sam is a college-dropout who thinks he's ordinary. But he's actually a necromancer, and he's found out by the local head-honcho necromancer, who also happens to be evil. Head honcho has plans that are far bigger than Sam (whose really just a side plot to him) and yet Sam somehow ends up in the middle of it all. Add to it that Sam has no freakin' clue how to use his powers, which the head honcho assures him are minimal anyway, a best friend whose willing to do anything to secure Sam's safety, a girl who gets killed and brought back as a head, and a captured hybrid werewolf/faye hound princess, and you've got a story.
As for content rating, this book is PG-13. There is violence, but its not too descriptive. There is also sex, but once again, not descriptive. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is the talking head girl and the zombies and other aspects of necromancy but its not that bad. Definitely only PG-13.
And then the chaos of the semester reached a lull. I met my research deadlines and finally had time to read. I didn't want to buy a new book until I had read this one, so I sat down and made myself read it....
...and finished it a few hours later.
That first impression? The one that said I wouldn't like this book? It was wrong. Dead wrong. This story was fantastic. Sam is a bit of a slacker, but for a reason! He's a complex young man (and though this is YA, Sam is a college-dropout, not a high schooler) and so are his friends. In fact, by the end of the book you still don't know his friends completely. They have their own secrets. The storyline was also surprisingly complex. Though Sam's perspective is written in first person, there are other POV characters (and their sections are written in third person).
A basic plot summary: Sam is a college-dropout who thinks he's ordinary. But he's actually a necromancer, and he's found out by the local head-honcho necromancer, who also happens to be evil. Head honcho has plans that are far bigger than Sam (whose really just a side plot to him) and yet Sam somehow ends up in the middle of it all. Add to it that Sam has no freakin' clue how to use his powers, which the head honcho assures him are minimal anyway, a best friend whose willing to do anything to secure Sam's safety, a girl who gets killed and brought back as a head, and a captured hybrid werewolf/faye hound princess, and you've got a story.
As for content rating, this book is PG-13. There is violence, but its not too descriptive. There is also sex, but once again, not descriptive. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is the talking head girl and the zombies and other aspects of necromancy but its not that bad. Definitely only PG-13.
No comments:
Post a Comment