I thought the book was really good, but not great. Concept is first-rate: a disease that sets you on fire. Plotting was excellent and unlike some 4.76
I thought the book was really good, but not great. Concept is first-rate: a disease that sets you on fire. Plotting was excellent and unlike some readers, I thought it moved right along. However, the book failed from achieving perfection for two reasons.
Reason the first: I thought the ending was disappointing and not just in the I don't like it way, though I didn't, but in a this just seems super implausible and contrived way. Serious -- like if you did not read the book do not click this -- spoiler (view spoiler)[ the trap didn't really make sense to me -- seemed like it would have been a lot less effort and more likely if the Mainers just decided to think people with Dragonscale were awful after they had the island rebellion and went back to being scared of them or killing them or whatever. I also disliked the whole John phoenix thing at the end since it seemed inconsistent with what we sort of knew about Dragonscale -- how did it survive without fire -- a la the Mom -- or why didn't it just dissipate? The whole leading Don to them was so forced imo. (hide spoiler)].
Also, unlike others I didn't find the character development outstanding, but it wasn't bad either. People just didn't always behave in the way they probably would and certain characters -- like Harold or even Jacob -- were entirely too two-dimensional and seemed created to serve plot efficiently, rather than realistically.
The nods to Dad were great though and the style was very King-esque without being derivative, not an easy feat.
Ugh. Not the worst premise, even though I am tempted to say a la South Park "Stephen King did it" (view spoiler)[ see drawing stuff that becomes reaUgh. Not the worst premise, even though I am tempted to say a la South Park "Stephen King did it" (view spoiler)[ see drawing stuff that becomes real in Insomnia and Dark Tower 6 and 7 (hide spoiler)] and did it better -- even though that deus ex machina was very unappreciated by me. Here, the kid Jack Peter's (as someone else mentioned, seriously? Who names a kid Jack Peter?) drawing is the plot, and the idea of whether some autisim spectrum kid makes drawings real, so Donohue can't be blamed for inserting this to get out of a plot bind, but man does he ever not do anything satisfying with it. Don't get me wrong, the ending is sort of nice, though unlike others I think you could see this coming about 3/4th of the way in. However, getting there was a tedious slog.
The POV is weirdly inconsistent. For no reason I can discern, there is an whole section where we suddenly go back in time to get other characters' reactions, but since this is not the general style of the novel, it is jarring and weird. The characters are pretty flat -- the dad is unlikable, but he probably shouldn't be -- a bit more discussion of what his motivations are would be nice -- and the mother basically hysterical, but without real depth. At least she has some reasons, though surface, for why she acts as she does. There is the introduction of a priest and housekeeper, the latter who seems to perhaps be pivotal to the story, yet who is just dropped without notice. Too bad since she was pretty darn interesting. Figures.
The most horrible thing for me is that this is set in Maine and I can relate to the exact locations Donohue describes, and he seems to want setting to be a character in its own right, which would be cool since the setting warrants it, but like his other characters Maine only gets a cursory description. Yes, we do have summer people from away and we do have a kick-ass coast-line, but there are better descriptions of the state on Wikipedia.
There is some more to complain about here, but I hope I have provided enough to support why I think you should give this a pass....more
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