Chuyển đến nội dung chính

The Flame in the Mist

by Kit Grindstaff
This book was published in April 2013

        I was looking for some magic and fantasy so I picked up The Flame in the Mist. The cover was well done and it seemed to reek of magic. So far so good. I launched into Jemma's world where she and her family live in a castle and rule over the land. They love to eat rotten food and spoiled milk, and every week make an offering to Mordrake and Mordrana, their family ancestors. Using magic they summon up evil things like bats, spiders, and monsters. However Jemma hates the weekly ceremonies and falters at doing anything evil. Obviously, she is different.

        I read one fourth of the book before I skipped to the last page, read the last paragraph, and declared the book finished.

        The plot moves a bit too quickly and awkwardly, using sleeping, escaping, and sneaking around heavily and repetitively in the plot. Too repetitively. In the first 24 hours of the book Jemma sleeps four times, sneaks around more than that, and attempts escape three times. This is essentially the first 100 pages of the book with 450 more pages to go. You might see now why I didn't finish it. Stephanie agrees with me although she was able to finish it.

       However, I think that this book has a place where it can find success. Middle schoolers and below will probably be more forgiving of the errors I find glaring and sympathize better with Jemma, who is 13. They won't find it immature and more they will be more likely to glaze over the oddly repetitive, shallow bits.

       Since I didn't enjoy this book I rate it a 2. I think a younger audience would give it a 3 or slightly higher. If this book were a food, it would be candy dots. Were they actually that good when I was young? I don't think so, but I also didn't care. Older teens and adults know to spend money on something else.

Nhận xét

Đăng nhận xét

Popular Posts

The Princess Who Flew with Dragons, by Stephanie Burgis

I still am busily reading elementary/middle grade speculative fiction a in my roles as a judge for the Cybils Awards (mainly going back to re-read things I read early last year), but I am in good enough shape that I treated myself one dreary day last week to a shiny and new and much anticipated book-- The Princess Who Flew with Dragons , by Stephanie Burgis (Bloomsbury, November 2019). This is the third in the series that began with The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart (link to my review), and it's possibly the one I enjoyed most.  I certainly think it was the fastest read; it was a (more or less) single-sitting of about an hour read for me (when I like a book and need to know what's going to happen next, I read faster, and it was relatively short-- 216 pages). Princess Sophia, who we met in Book 2, The Girl with a Dragon Heart , is the main character here, and when her story begins, she's being sent by her older sister, the ruling princess, to a distant city to attend a Worl...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away, by Ronald L. Smith (review and interview)

I first had the pleasure of meeting Ronald L. Smith at Kidlitcon back in 2015 (PSA--come to Kidlitcon 2020 in Ann Arbor next March!).  His first middle grade book, Hoodoo, a tale of supernatural horror in the south, had just been published, and I enjoyed it very much ( my review ).  I likewise enjoyed The Mesmerist (2017), about kids fighting evil in 19th century London ( my review ).  I never reviewed Black Panther: the Young Prince (2018)….someday I will.  So in any event, I was very excited about his most recent book, The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away (Clarion Books, February 2019). This is the story of an air force kid, Simon, son of a black mom and a white dad, who's obsessed with aliens.  He's convinced owl-like aliens have arrived, watching and experimenting on humans.  His family has no time or patience for aliens, so Simon is alone with his fears of the Grays, as he calls them.  When something very strange happens on a camping trip with hi...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

The Wind Eye, by Robert Westall, for Timeslip Tuesday

This week's Timeslip Tuesday book is an older English one-- The Wind Eye , by Robert Westall (upper MG/YA 1976, still in print).  Westall's work ranges from picture books to adult, often exploring how the past hits the present in dark and mysterious ways.  Which is what happens in The Wind Eye.... It begins when a family, comprising a mother and her teenaged son married to a father with two daughters (one a young teen and one a little girl), setting off to the northeast coast of England to stay in the old house the father has just inherited.  They are not a happy family.  The kids get along fine, but the parents are not getting on well at all. And then the past and the present collide.   St. Cuthbert still is a real person to the people of this part of the Northumberland coast, and he becomes so to the kids as well when they find a boat that travels back to his time, taking them out to the island that was his retreat from the world.   Along the way, there's...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm