Invisible Things by Jenny Davidson
Instead of writing a synopsis myself, or copying the inside cover I am going to write the review. You will see why.
Here is a look at my journey with Invisible Things.
Step 1: I find the book on Goodreads, “Wow, great cover! Cool concept!”
Step 2: Good Golly Miss Holly is hosting an ARC tour of Invisible Things, “Sign me up!”
Step 3: A finished copy of Invisible Things shows up on my doorstep, I am the first to receive the book on the tour and the finished copy is not on shelves yet! “Oh. My Gosh!” *squealing ensues*
Step 4: Lovingly stroked the cover, traced the title. “I hope this is good!”
Step 5: Read the inside flap, “Um, what? I don’t remember the synopsis being so choppy on Goodreads...hmmm...”
Step 6: Read the prologue, “The flap must have been a fluke, this still sounds good!”
Step 7: Read the first page of the story. Sophie was lying on her stomach on the bed in her own little room under the eaves, a bedroom with slanted walls and a small window overlooking the trees in the park behind the institute. As she read through Nan’s letter for the third time, she blushed at the bit about Mr. Peterson- she had once believed herself to be in love with her chemistry teacher, it was true, until the notion was dispelled by the revelation of her feelings for his younger brother, Mikael. “Oh, no. This is not good.”
Step 8: Continued to read with great trepidation. Mikael had helped her escape from Scotland and the real danger that she would vanish into the labyrinth of an infernal training scheme instituted by Sophie’s very own great-aunt and designed to brainwash you women, eroding their personalities and subtracting all freedom of will so as to subordinate them to the needs and desires of the country’s most powerful men. “What?! And AIR, I DEMAND AIR and PUNCTUATION!”
Step 9: Re-read that page at least ten times, I’ve decided it does make sense, but there is no point in writing a story in what way one pushes one’s reader far from the eroding personality of the centralized character in the hopes that my distinctly fussy vocabulary will be saluted in a most up-right and forthcoming manor. “Can I really read this?” *flipped to see how many pages there are, 261 pages if you are wondering*
Step 10: Sucked it up and plunged forward, read to page 14, not sure what exactly what was happening. There was defiantly a cat, I only know because he was named “Trismegistus?! What kind of name is that, what is happening to me, what is this book!?”
Step 11: Read to page 26 where I realized I had zoned out. I then deduced that the “invisible things” the author was so pretentiously writing of were the following.
Invisible Things Include and are not limited to:
An invisible plot
Invisible dialogue. The book was written in a third person narrative, I count only six lines of dialogue in the first ten pages.
An invisible point and purpose, “Chasing cats with radioactive isotopes, oh, I’m hooked.”
The one thing not invisible was the author’s superfluous use of her ostentatious vocabulary.
I wish Davidson had written in invisible ink. “I really do. “
Step 12: Flipped to the back flap to read about Davidson. Jenny Davidson is a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University. “Oh, that explains so much.” *head shaking yes*
No, I did not finish it, I made my mother read the first ten pages, just to clarify I was not crazy and missing out on the best book of my lifetime. She kept laughing like a mad woman and would read aloud the ridiculousness.
I would really recommend Davidson stick to non-fiction, I bet she is awesome at lecturing! I'm serious here, I am sure she is an awesome professor.
Thoughts on the Cover: This cover model kept getting edited. Her hair flew all over the color spectrum, I’ve seen a blond, a raven-haired girl and a brunette. Her lip color continues to get richer. It’s still very pretty, but I didn’t need to see before pictures to know that this picture was photo-edited to the max.
Notes on the Names: I repeat, “TRISMEGISTUS?!”
3 comments:
It's a sequel - so probably would help a ton if you read EXPLOSIONIST first. The first few pages actually serve as a reminder to readers of why Sophie is in Denmark, etc.
And the cat thing is explained better if you know where he came from and who he used to belong to.
I really wish HC had just sold this book as a sequel so people would know they need to read the other book first to really enjoy it. I have no clue why they chose not to do that but I think it required the author to explain a lot more in the beginning of INVISIBLE about the previous book instead of being allowed to assume readers would already know all that. (Oh - and on the cover you must see the cover for EXPLOSIONIST. It's Sophie also, but a totally different cover model. The mind reels at why they made this particular choice!)
Colleen- I did my research, I knew it was a sequel and had I not been the first to receive the book I would have read book one. As it stands, reading Explosionist would not have changed my opinion on the writing.
As I said, there were only six lines of dialouge in ten pages, the vocabulary was far too verbose to paint a clear enough picture and the rising action was just boring, not confusing.
I understand many are huge advocates of the first book, but that doesn't change my opinion. My friend, who was sent the book next on the tour had the same opinion as I, and stopped in the same place.
As for the cover, I think it's beautiful, and the Explosionist is intruiging, but I look at the covers with a photographers eye. What I saw was a very pretty, severely edited photo.
I hope that answers your questions.
Your review almost made me laugh. I (sadly) have wasted hours of time reading The Explosionist, so I'm not surprised about anything you said.
What still surprises me is how these books got published. I just don't get it.
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