Robin Wasserman
440 pg., U.S. hardcover
Random House
4 stars | B
From Goodreads:
It was like a nightmare, but there was no waking up. When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love. When it ended, she had nothing but blood on her hands and an echoing scream that stopped only when the tranquilizers pierced her veins and left her in the merciful dark.
But the next morning, it was all still true: Chris was dead. His girlfriend Adriane, Nora’s best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora’s sweet, smart, soft-spoken Prince Charming, was gone. He was also—according to the police, according to her parents, according to everyone—a murderer.
Desperate to prove his innocence, Nora follows the trail of blood, no matter where it leads. It ultimately brings her to the ancient streets of Prague, where she is drawn into a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all driven by a mad desire to possess something that might not even exist. For buried in a centuries-old manuscript is the secret to ultimate knowledge and communion with the divine; it is said that he who controls the Lumen Dei controls the world. Unbeknownst to her, Nora now holds the crucial key to unlocking its secrets. Her night of blood is just one piece in a puzzle that spans continents and centuries. Solving it may be the only way she can save her own life.
Alright, let's see if I can properly review this beast of a book, both externally and internally.
Essentially, The Book of Blood and Shadow was definitely not what I expected. I'm not really sure what I expected from a book like this, but it didn't meet my expectations to the fullest. That said, the novel has a good story, superb writing, and alright characters, so that is where I base my review, but bare in mind that the book is not at all what I was expecting, and that fact may or may not pop up once or twice in this review.
Kicking off with the story's writing, the book has a very unique style, unique to its own genre, not unique to its author. The writing style is very similar to both a contemporary YA novel, and also a myserty novel along the likes of The Da Vinci Code. It's got a writing style built for plot intricacy, so those two things definitely went hand-in-hand. As always, I'll analyze the pacing for you real quick. I thought the pacing in TBoBaS was a little all over the board. It started out pretty nicely, then slowed down, picked up by a ton, and then slowed down once more, and then finally picked up again, and that's where the book was beginning to lose me. While I was reading the book, I'd never want to put it down, but when I did, I'd never want to pick it back up again. I'm not sure why, but it may be because I knew that I would get bored, then excited, then bored, then excited once more, and I didn't want that from this book. I wanted a thrilling, emotional rollercoaster of this near-amazing novel, but that just isn't what I got. The book definitely isn't for everyone, so I do warn those going in that it's very attention-demanding.
Moving on to the plot of the story, like I said, the plot is very complex and intricate, and that worked well with the writing style. The plot revolves around these letters that the main character is translating from their original language, so you've really got to pay attention to those. Some things are spelled out for the reader, others are not, and I supposed it's for the best, but I wish that more things in a complex story like this would be recapped and made clear...for the reader's sake. Apart from that, there isn't a whole lot to cover from the plot besides its arc. The story definitely had an arc, especially considering the first line had to do with the climax and resolution, as well as the inciting incident, I suppose. The arc is there, but you've really got to be paying attention to see it. The book isn't challenging, but it definitely isn't a breeze.
Ending off with the characterisation in the story, I really only cared for the development of Nora, which I felt was pretty weak compared to how it could have gone. Some other characters displayed glimpses of development, but the development of Nora was vital to the story, and this is where I think the first-person narrative became a downfall. Having the story be told from Nora's perspective made me forget she was even there, so it was hard to identify development in her character when I wasn't paying any mind to her presence. I felt like I was just reading about the Hjafgaghsflgjhasfg or whatever they're called, as well as mentions of Chris, Eli, Adriane, etc. The characterisation was definitely the book's weakest link, and that had to pay a price in my review.
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