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I read The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge. It was excellent.
This was shelved with the children's books at my library. It has no pictures and deals with what I consider adult concepts. I was surprised it was not young adult, but the line between those is fuzzy. Honestly, this is the kind of book that reads quickly for an adult, but is well worth reading regardless of the supposed age range.
The book was exceptionally well researched, the author used real life anthropological and sociological research and personal experience to build up the characters and peoples of her story. These things were not used directly, but were adapted because this is not a this world story. It is a fantasy story on an alien world where people are different and some of them can do magic.
The characters were great, there was just enough back story and development that no one seemed like they were just painted into the backdrop, but there was a savage editor who kept the author from wandering off into the weeds and explaining random historical interactions.
My favorite parts of this are how the main character doesn't really seem to know quite how things ended up the way they are. We watch from inside her head and from the narrator's POV both, but the main character doesn't automatically know everything the narrator knows. It's shocking how powerful watching someone struggle with things that seem easy to us makes watching her glide through dealing with a tremendous crisis. I loved how she searches desperately for the right thing to say because saying the wrong thing will get people killed.
I also loved how we weren't quite sure what the truth really was about anything. It's as much a mystery as any mystery I've ever read. If it hadn't been about a 12 year old girl being the pivot point for the entire story, if it had been a 19 year old, this could have been an adult fantasy book easily. If any genre would allow fantasy crossovers... this could easily be a mystery.
The plotting and pacing were nicely done. The relationships between characters (romantic ones only vaguely hinted) were brilliant. The underlying depth to the book is phenomenal.
If this gets the attention it deserves, it should win a Newberry and become a classic both. It's better, and a lot more coherent, than A Wrinkle In Time.
You absolutely should ask after this book at your library. It's worth buying, to me anyway.
ps. To those people who care about that kind of thing, the cover wasn't "whitewashed"... despite not being specified in the book and there being a lot of artistic license taken toward the people of the story, the girl on the cover is very Pacific Islander in appearance.
This was shelved with the children's books at my library. It has no pictures and deals with what I consider adult concepts. I was surprised it was not young adult, but the line between those is fuzzy. Honestly, this is the kind of book that reads quickly for an adult, but is well worth reading regardless of the supposed age range.
The book was exceptionally well researched, the author used real life anthropological and sociological research and personal experience to build up the characters and peoples of her story. These things were not used directly, but were adapted because this is not a this world story. It is a fantasy story on an alien world where people are different and some of them can do magic.
The characters were great, there was just enough back story and development that no one seemed like they were just painted into the backdrop, but there was a savage editor who kept the author from wandering off into the weeds and explaining random historical interactions.
My favorite parts of this are how the main character doesn't really seem to know quite how things ended up the way they are. We watch from inside her head and from the narrator's POV both, but the main character doesn't automatically know everything the narrator knows. It's shocking how powerful watching someone struggle with things that seem easy to us makes watching her glide through dealing with a tremendous crisis. I loved how she searches desperately for the right thing to say because saying the wrong thing will get people killed.
I also loved how we weren't quite sure what the truth really was about anything. It's as much a mystery as any mystery I've ever read. If it hadn't been about a 12 year old girl being the pivot point for the entire story, if it had been a 19 year old, this could have been an adult fantasy book easily. If any genre would allow fantasy crossovers... this could easily be a mystery.
The plotting and pacing were nicely done. The relationships between characters (romantic ones only vaguely hinted) were brilliant. The underlying depth to the book is phenomenal.
If this gets the attention it deserves, it should win a Newberry and become a classic both. It's better, and a lot more coherent, than A Wrinkle In Time.
You absolutely should ask after this book at your library. It's worth buying, to me anyway.
ps. To those people who care about that kind of thing, the cover wasn't "whitewashed"... despite not being specified in the book and there being a lot of artistic license taken toward the people of the story, the girl on the cover is very Pacific Islander in appearance.
