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Book Blog: Nevermore, by Rob Thurman
Dec. 30th, 2015 12:21 pmThere’s not too much I can say about this book if I’m not to spoiler folk far and wide, because it is number 10 in the author’s Cal Leandros series and depends heavily on the other nine books. Which are worth reading. You can read the first one, Nightlife, and stop there if you want to and it will work fairly well, but I found it impossible to stop with just one.
These books are character-driven, specifically the Leandros brothers, Cal and his older brother Niko, living in an urban fantasy New York, in the old Brothers Grimm sense of monsters and bloody violence and endings which are less than Disney. The brothers’ gypsy heritage is a strong element, as is Cal’s nonhuman background. He shares a mother with Niko, the amoral, con artist Sophia, but his father was something else. Something which makes the reader change every idea they might have had about elves, if elves were hairless, white skinned monsters with red eyes, needle sharp fangs and an ambition to murder every human alive.
Nevermore marks the beginning of a new arc in the story, which I had thought ended with the previous book. I’m not totally certain it works. The book spends nearly all its time inside Cal’s head and is sometimes next thing to stream of consciousness, with some odd punctuation that jarred me. I still finished it as the story was compelling enough for that, but I’m still a bit disappointed, given the strength of the others. It also ends with a cliffhanger leading into the next book, but felt more as though it was one book broken off in the middle.
FOLLOWING COMMENTS CONTAIN SPOILERS
These books are character-driven, specifically the Leandros brothers, Cal and his older brother Niko, living in an urban fantasy New York, in the old Brothers Grimm sense of monsters and bloody violence and endings which are less than Disney. The brothers’ gypsy heritage is a strong element, as is Cal’s nonhuman background. He shares a mother with Niko, the amoral, con artist Sophia, but his father was something else. Something which makes the reader change every idea they might have had about elves, if elves were hairless, white skinned monsters with red eyes, needle sharp fangs and an ambition to murder every human alive.
Nevermore marks the beginning of a new arc in the story, which I had thought ended with the previous book. I’m not totally certain it works. The book spends nearly all its time inside Cal’s head and is sometimes next thing to stream of consciousness, with some odd punctuation that jarred me. I still finished it as the story was compelling enough for that, but I’m still a bit disappointed, given the strength of the others. It also ends with a cliffhanger leading into the next book, but felt more as though it was one book broken off in the middle.
FOLLOWING COMMENTS CONTAIN SPOILERS