Daughter of Deep Silence Review

Remember the TV show Revenge? It was a show with a wacky but compelling first season, about a young women on a mission of... revenge. I'm pleased to say that Daughter of Deep Silence is very similar to Revenge, both in subject matter and tone, but doesn't approach copycat status.  Well done, Carrie Ryan, if the nod to Revenge was intentional, which I kind of hope it was.

Daughter of Deep Silence follows Frances, a girl who was fourteen when unmasked gunmen boarded the cruise ship that she and her parents were passengers on.  Everyone was slaughtered, except Frances and her friend Libby, who escaped by hiding on a forgotten dumbwaiter.  Adrift on a life raft, the girls are discovered by Libby's father's own ship, but too late for Libby to survive.  While convalescing in a hospital, Frances discovers that Grey Wells, a fellow passenger that she had a brief, yet powerful, romance with, and his father, a U.S. Senator, survived the gunmen as well.  Only Grey and his father don't mention any gunmen... they blame an enormous wave for the disaster.  Figuring the Senator, and possibly Grey, had something to do with the attack, and that she is still in danger, Frances goes into hiding. Then, years later, hardened and formidable, Frances plays her own retaliatory hand.

First, let's get some issues of the way.  Much like Revenge, Daughter of Deep Silence has plot holes galore.  There were a ton of things that made no sense.  Fortunately for me, these plot holes didn't bother me so much.  This may not be the case with all readers, but I gave this book a lot of leeway, perhaps because I wanted to enjoy it.  However, I do acknowledge that the plot holes are a legitimate weakness of the book.

Secondly, Frances' actions can be maddening at times.  She waffles at moments, vacillating between being too hard and too soft.  These actions are consistent with her character, however, which is highly conflicted.  I can readily see how some readers would be very put off by Frances.

Thirdly, I have this feeling that the book had quite a bit of unrealized potential.  The novel had a very nice concept and solid characters, but wound up drawing back instead of moving forward a number of times.  I realize that this criticism is quite abstract... What I mean is, is that Ryan could have pushed the envelope a little further to make this book even better.

Now for the things I liked.  The flashback scenes were very effective, I thought.  The contrast between the young girl Frances used to be, and the hard woman she is now was striking.  Her memories are poignant and sepia-toned, knowing as we do how those blissful moments at sea before the disaster were Frances' last happy times.  The romance between a young Grey and Frances was pretty darn sexy, for them being so young.  I mean, wowza.  A standout scene in the book was a memory of Frances and Grey swimming together, playing around with his water-proof phone.  The scene is blissful and passionate and then Ryan transitions that phone into the future with cymbal-crashing shock.  It was my favorite moment of the book.

So, while I'd like to give Daughter of Deep Silence a higher rating, I'm more than aware of its shortcomings.  However, I did legitimately enjoy this book and I look forward to Carrie Ryan's future offerings.

 

 

Magonia Review

Since becoming a blogger I've become a different reader.  Before I wrote book reviews, I wouldn't bother finishing a book that wasn't working for me.  Now, I make my best effort to read books in their entirety, because I can write more informed reviews that way.  Still, I was only able to get through about two thirds of Magonia before skipping ahead to the ending and calling it a day.

Magonia is a Narnia-esque fantasy — a girl living in the normal world discovers a magical one, just "through the wardrobe," as it were.  Aza, the girl in question, has always been sickly, unable to breathe air effectively, for some mysterious reason.  Her doctors say she's quickly running out of time.  But, just at a fatal moment, Aza is whisked away to Magonia, a land of bird-like creatures and airships in the sky. Able to breathe the thin air, Aza comes into her own strengths for the first time, but must question the intentions of her new Magonian family. What do they want with her and are they being entirely forthright? Meanwhile, back on the ground, Aza's best friend, Jason, is determined to find her...

I have a lot of problems with Magonia.  One of my main issues is that the book is stretched too thin.  Headley wrote a stand-alone contemporary/fantasy — with only 320 pages!!  On top of that, the novel spends a good amount of time in exposition mode at its beginning.  I think it was the author's intention to build up her characters and raise the emotional stakes of her story by fleshing out Aza's existing relationships before she's taken away to Magonia. It was a good idea, but I think the book would have been better served by jumping into action a little quicker.  Because the beginning lagged, Headley had to start her fantasy world-building late in the game, which hurt the pace of the story.

On top of that, we were pulled away from Magonia over and over again by the chapters focusing on Jason's — largely internal — activities.  He was a thin character, slavishly devoted to Aza.  It bothers me when characters can't stand on their own, and Jason entire purpose throughout the novel was to worship Aza... who was over-worshiped. Her funeral scene left me alternatively sniggering and gaping.  A moment that was supposed to move me, instead gave me the biggest laugh in the book! [spoiler]When Jason, who is wearing an alligator suit, with the words "Aza Ray was here" painted on the head, drives to the burial honking morse code messages to Aza... only not real morse code because he doesn't want anyone to know what he's saying. [/spoiler] Truly, the histrionics in this book turned me off.  The emotion was always ramped up to ten, but because I was not invested, everything came across as clownish.

In case it hasn't come across clearly yet, I do not recommend this book.  A good alternative would be The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.