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tinybookwyrm's review
3.0
I enjoyed it but it was lacking something. I feel like there should have been more depth, he could've done so much with that plot.
archergal's review
3.0
Teen-age angst meets the underworld.
Intrepid teen Zoe is still grieving the loss of her father. She discovers a strange record store that seems to have recordings of peoples' lives, including her father's life - recordings that she can experience. But nothing comes without a price. To help her father, Zoe has to brave the Iphigene, the way station for souls. But Iphigene also has a dark secret. Zoe has to draw on courage and strength she didn't know she had.
A pretty decent getting-over-grief/growing up/battling an underworld goddess novel.
I listened to it pretty much straight through while knitting one afternoon. It's a bit YA, which isn't my usual thing, but it was straightforward and decent.
Intrepid teen Zoe is still grieving the loss of her father. She discovers a strange record store that seems to have recordings of peoples' lives, including her father's life - recordings that she can experience. But nothing comes without a price. To help her father, Zoe has to brave the Iphigene, the way station for souls. But Iphigene also has a dark secret. Zoe has to draw on courage and strength she didn't know she had.
A pretty decent getting-over-grief/growing up/battling an underworld goddess novel.
I listened to it pretty much straight through while knitting one afternoon. It's a bit YA, which isn't my usual thing, but it was straightforward and decent.
skybalon's review against another edition
4.0
I pretty good book, that flirts with being a YA novel, but ultimately is mostly intended for adults. In typical Kadrey fashion, it deals with some pretty deep issues in a way that feels real and accessible. It all makes some sort of tenuous coherent sense and is fun and somewhat thought provoking. Well worth the read.
torisaur's review against another edition
4.0
I don't usually read young adult books, but I've read most of Richard Kadrey's other work and I spotted this for sale at the library so I picked it up. It wasn't bad, I think I would have liked it a lot when I was a tween. As an adult, it was missing something. So, 4 stars for being good at being a book for teens read by an adult who mostly skipped over the"young adult book" phase.
gregtrob's review
2.0
I love the Sandman Slim series so I picked this up. I struggled what rating to give this book between a 1 and 3 (and settled on the 2). The plot is good - I'm not sure the execution and/or characters are what I thought should have been there (particularly the main character).
pbanditp's review
3.0
What if there were albums that recorded a soul’s memories? What if you could plug into them and see through the eyes of a loved one that has passed on?
Richard Kadrey has some seriously messed up ideas of what happens to us after we die.
I had a hard time connecting with the main character on this, probably because I am not a young teenage girl, but really liked the premise
Richard Kadrey has some seriously messed up ideas of what happens to us after we die.
I had a hard time connecting with the main character on this, probably because I am not a young teenage girl, but really liked the premise
leilaniann's review
3.0
I picked this up cause I am a fan of Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels, not knowing it was geared to a YA audience. It was a little to tame for me. However, It had an unexpected dose of comedy. The two main characters, a mother and daughter move to San Francisco because they are broke and slumming it! Sure buddy.
vermidian's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
This book was a gift from my partner. They have really enjoyed Kadrey's books, and they thought I'd enjoy this book more than I did the Sandman Slim books I read. And they were right!
So here's the things I liked about the book. I liked how the grief was described, as a tension and a numbness, a calm after a storm where nothing is quite right. I liked how the book felt somewhere between a modern fairy tale and a fable, almost reminding me of an Anansi the Spider story at times. I liked how the settings were described, between the decrepit Iphigene and the urban wasteland of the waking world. Kadrey seems to really enjoy the shady side of cities, which is really interesting because it's never sight-seeing or reverent. For example, this book takes place in the San Fransisco area, but you would never know that if it wasn't stated somewhere toward the end of the book. (It might have been said at the beginning too, but the end is fresh in my mind.)
And here's the parts I didn't care for. I often don't find Kadrey's characters to feel particularly like real people to me. His characters are not the worst offenders, for sure, but they're off enough that it occasionally takes me out of the story because the character does something so off from my experience of how people respond in real life. Granted, that might just be the particular subset of people I've interacted with, but I find it most commonly in two places: where adult authors are writing children and forget how characters of that age group behave and where male authors write the opposite gender. This book happens to be a little bit of both of those things in our main character Zoe and her high school friend Absynthe, and while he does very well most of the time, there were definitely some moments that made me pause. A lot of that has to do with writing outside of one's own experience, and the only way you get better at it is doing and learning from it. Another thing I didn't particularly care for was that there felt like plot threads that just got dropped for no reason other than they weren't relevant anymore. I also felt like the mixing of the mythologies was a little confusing, but that's just personal preference. (Ammut being Egyptian mythology, Hecate being Greek mythology, and Black Dogs being historically British mythology.) Again, nothing egregious, but it popped me out of immersion in the story.
If you're looking at reading this, it's a very smooth read. It went smoother for me than the Sandman Slim books did for certain.
So here's the things I liked about the book. I liked how the grief was described, as a tension and a numbness, a calm after a storm where nothing is quite right. I liked how the book felt somewhere between a modern fairy tale and a fable, almost reminding me of an Anansi the Spider story at times. I liked how the settings were described, between the decrepit Iphigene and the urban wasteland of the waking world. Kadrey seems to really enjoy the shady side of cities, which is really interesting because it's never sight-seeing or reverent. For example, this book takes place in the San Fransisco area, but you would never know that if it wasn't stated somewhere toward the end of the book. (It might have been said at the beginning too, but the end is fresh in my mind.)
And here's the parts I didn't care for. I often don't find Kadrey's characters to feel particularly like real people to me. His characters are not the worst offenders, for sure, but they're off enough that it occasionally takes me out of the story because the character does something so off from my experience of how people respond in real life. Granted, that might just be the particular subset of people I've interacted with, but I find it most commonly in two places: where adult authors are writing children and forget how characters of that age group behave and where male authors write the opposite gender. This book happens to be a little bit of both of those things in our main character Zoe and her high school friend Absynthe, and while he does very well most of the time, there were definitely some moments that made me pause. A lot of that has to do with writing outside of one's own experience, and the only way you get better at it is doing and learning from it. Another thing I didn't particularly care for was that there felt like plot threads that just got dropped for no reason other than they weren't relevant anymore. I also felt like the mixing of the mythologies was a little confusing, but that's just personal preference. (Ammut being Egyptian mythology, Hecate being Greek mythology, and Black Dogs being historically British mythology.) Again, nothing egregious, but it popped me out of immersion in the story.
If you're looking at reading this, it's a very smooth read. It went smoother for me than the Sandman Slim books did for certain.
swhitwell's review against another edition
4.0
In a few words, I would describe this book as an original and interesting page-turner.
It was filled with fresh ideas about the afterlife told with a fantasy twist. Kadrey held my interest throughout the whole book and I was invested in Zoe and Valentine’s stories.
Zoe is a teenage girl who has recently lost her father. She and her mother are forced to move into a small apartment when finances get tough. She now has to navigate her life at a new school in a rougher neighbourhood.
Since Zoe was a young girl, she has always been visited in her dreams by her dream-brother Valentine. Her parents always thought she struggled with mental issues because of her ‘imaginary’ friend so she eventually stopped talking about him and kept it to herself, never really sure if he was real or not.
One day, while ditching school, she stumbles across this used record store. It’s there that she meets Emmett, this weird creepy guy, who shows her a machine called an Animagraph. It allows you to view memories of people who are deceased.
One thing leads to another and Zoe finds herself following Emmett through sewers and tunnels, into the dark and crumbling afterlife world of Iphigene. There is a dark and horrific Queen, flying and flesh-eating snakes, wolf armies, and terrified residents that hide in the shadows from the world that surrounds them.
This book is a dark, fantasy-thriller and I really enjoyed it!
Find me on->
Instagram: @firefly.lane
Facebook: @fireflylaneblog
It was filled with fresh ideas about the afterlife told with a fantasy twist. Kadrey held my interest throughout the whole book and I was invested in Zoe and Valentine’s stories.
Zoe is a teenage girl who has recently lost her father. She and her mother are forced to move into a small apartment when finances get tough. She now has to navigate her life at a new school in a rougher neighbourhood.
Since Zoe was a young girl, she has always been visited in her dreams by her dream-brother Valentine. Her parents always thought she struggled with mental issues because of her ‘imaginary’ friend so she eventually stopped talking about him and kept it to herself, never really sure if he was real or not.
One day, while ditching school, she stumbles across this used record store. It’s there that she meets Emmett, this weird creepy guy, who shows her a machine called an Animagraph. It allows you to view memories of people who are deceased.
One thing leads to another and Zoe finds herself following Emmett through sewers and tunnels, into the dark and crumbling afterlife world of Iphigene. There is a dark and horrific Queen, flying and flesh-eating snakes, wolf armies, and terrified residents that hide in the shadows from the world that surrounds them.
This book is a dark, fantasy-thriller and I really enjoyed it!
Find me on->
Instagram: @firefly.lane
Facebook: @fireflylaneblog