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Book #7: Rook, by Sharon Cameron
Feb. 3rd, 2016 12:17 pmSo there's another girl!Pimpernel book that is one of my favourite books of all time. I mention this so you are aware of the baggage that I bring to ROOK.
I liked a lot of it in theory. I'm always here for smart girls who do action-y things. My problem was that there were a lot of boys in this book. Like, a lot of them. And we're TOLD that Sophie is great and smart and so on, but we never get to see her DO anything Pimpernel-ish, without being saved immediately by one of the boys. I am all for team work, but, like, JUST OCCASIONALLY, right?
I also had real trouble with the "not like other girls" aspects of the book. Sophie actually manages to grow through it (there's a moment at the end where she wishes she'd been nicer to Jennifer when they were little), but Adele was INFURIATING. Essentially, she picks Sophie to marry her son when Sophie is 8 (because Sophie is feisty), and then proceeds to be REALLY, REALLY awful to her once she's a grown-up, to test her and make sure she's still worth it. The other character, Jennifer, was essentially a prop for everyone else's emotional development, so her recapture and torture was kind of...awkward.
Also the resolution of the love triangle is EASILY my least favourite way of dealing with the trope. Especially since Tom (Sophie's brother) could have headed it all off LITERALLY YEARS BEFORE, and chose not to because REASONS, essentially.
This sounds like I didn't enjoy it at all, even though there were definitely parts that I did. I'm a sucker for a good apocalypse, and this was a good apocalypse. I liked the futuristic setting and the way the world was built. The way Cameron worked in the Pimpernel was super cool, and I appreciated it a lot, and the politics were good. It does better than break even, basically. I am just, you know, me. :)
I liked a lot of it in theory. I'm always here for smart girls who do action-y things. My problem was that there were a lot of boys in this book. Like, a lot of them. And we're TOLD that Sophie is great and smart and so on, but we never get to see her DO anything Pimpernel-ish, without being saved immediately by one of the boys. I am all for team work, but, like, JUST OCCASIONALLY, right?
I also had real trouble with the "not like other girls" aspects of the book. Sophie actually manages to grow through it (there's a moment at the end where she wishes she'd been nicer to Jennifer when they were little), but Adele was INFURIATING. Essentially, she picks Sophie to marry her son when Sophie is 8 (because Sophie is feisty), and then proceeds to be REALLY, REALLY awful to her once she's a grown-up, to test her and make sure she's still worth it. The other character, Jennifer, was essentially a prop for everyone else's emotional development, so her recapture and torture was kind of...awkward.
Also the resolution of the love triangle is EASILY my least favourite way of dealing with the trope. Especially since Tom (Sophie's brother) could have headed it all off LITERALLY YEARS BEFORE, and chose not to because REASONS, essentially.
This sounds like I didn't enjoy it at all, even though there were definitely parts that I did. I'm a sucker for a good apocalypse, and this was a good apocalypse. I liked the futuristic setting and the way the world was built. The way Cameron worked in the Pimpernel was super cool, and I appreciated it a lot, and the politics were good. It does better than break even, basically. I am just, you know, me. :)
