Sunday, February 9, 2014
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Fantasy
,
fiction
,
Horror
,
YA
No comments
Fantasy
,
fiction
,
Horror
,
YA
No comments
White Space
Author: Ilsa Bick
Version: ARC review copy
Summary:
In the tradition of Memento and Inception comes a thrilling and scary young adult novel about blurred reality where characters in a story find that a deadly and horrifying world exists in the space between the written lines.
Seventeen-year-old Emma Lindsay has problems: a head full of metal, no parents, a crazy artist for a guardian whom a stroke has turned into a vegetable, and all those times when she blinks away, dropping into other lives so ghostly and surreal it's as if the story of her life bleeds into theirs. But one thing Emma has never doubted is that she's real.
Then she writes "White Space," a story about these kids stranded in a spooky house during a blizzard.
Unfortunately, "White Space" turns out to be a dead ringer for part of an unfinished novel by a long-dead writer. The manuscript, which she's never seen, is a loopy Matrix meets Inkheart story in which characters fall out of different books and jump off the page. Thing is, when Emma blinks, she might be doing the same and, before long, she's dropped into the very story she thought she'd written. Trapped in a weird, snow-choked valley, Emma meets other kids with dark secrets and strange abilities: Eric, Casey, Bode, Rima, and a very special little girl, Lizzie. What they discover is that they--and Emma--may be nothing more than characters written into being from an alternative universe for a very specific purpose.
Now what they must uncover is why they've been brought to this place--a world between the lines where parallel realities are created and destroyed and nightmares are written--before someone pens their end.
Review:
I really wanted to like this book, I truly did, but I was unable to read past 40%.
After viewing the description and the cover art, I was super excited about the concept and couldn't wait to begin reading. However, the more I read, the more confused I became. For starters, I felt like I was thrown into Libby's world without any background information at all. The made up words and symbols that seemed to be extremely important, were never defined and it was extremely frustrating. For example, what is the sign of Sure, what exactly is thought energy, are the metal creatures alive, and why is Libby's quilt so important ? There were plenty more, but I can't remember them all, because I put down the book hoping I would want to finish it later. Sadly, I don't plan on doing so. To see how others felt about White Space, I checked Goodreads. Apparently, many agree that they don't like swimming in 500 pages of confusion before they understand what's happening.
Another thing I found annoying was the numerous point-of-view changes. After trying to cope with the new environment and the flux of made up words, I felt switching between 4 and 5 characters, each in a new situation, was extremely unnecessary.
I was also unprepared for the horror sections I read. After all, people were comparing White Space to Inkheart and the idea of flesh being severed from bone, bloody snow, and empty eye sockets was not something I envisioned. However, if you don't mind horror, the blizzard scene is extremely similar to Stephen King's movie "The Mist".
This book will probably be amazing to someone, but for me it was a complete let down. For those reading this review, please do not let my opinion sway you from reading the book. If you are interested, please give it a try and form your own opinion.
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