Review: Flawed but compulsively readable
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 12, 2013
(In the interest of full disclosure, I should state first that I count author Jamie Wyman as a friend, although geography and time constraints have sadly prevented us from becoming close.  I was more than a little apprehensive, therefore, about reading her book; not that I thought her incapable of writing something good, but because I hate having to tell someone I genuinely like and respect that the project they've loved and labored over has serious problems and may well be stillborn. Tl;dr:  this is not one of those projects.  So without further ado...)Phew.  I think I need a cigarette.Not-quite-three-hundred pages of Cat Sharp's whirlwind 24 hours all over Vegas is enough to wear anyone out.  Twists piling on top of turns, betrayals and counter-betrayals.  And like the best Vegas stories, the stakes are high - Cat's very freedom is at stake.Whirlwind or no, the pacing is one of this story's strongest attributes.  If the pages were physical, they would practically spark as you turned them, scathing remarks and witty rejoinders flying back and forth in quick brief flashes.  There's just the right amount of time for the characters to catch their breath before the next crisis, and the next, until the big climactic scene.Unfortunately, the breakneck pace seems to cost more than a little clarity.  The rules of the story are not well-defined (what exactly is it that magical beings can do with her soul? what are their limits?); and while a certain amount of opacity is justifiable (as Cat herself doesn't understand the entirety of what's going on and is fumbling around based on a notoriously unreliable goddess' word), it was unclear to this reader precisely why she was pursuing the MacGuffin.  At times it seemed implied that she would gain her freedom, at others merely the possibility to better her circumstances, and either way it's never quite delineated how the magic poker chips are supposed to work.  Or, indeed, what they signify - if Cat was collecting them to gain her freedom, why did the gods flick them over to her so easily once she confronted them?  Similarly, while I could understand Cat's overwhelming desire to regain possession of her soul, I couldn't quite follow her willingness to trust the word of a goddess who had proved her untrustworthiness on multiple occasions.  Even with nothing else to go on, she seemed resourceful enough to find some way of verifying Eris' word and perhaps gaining a better understanding of what was going on; even with the human tendency to ignore better sense when offered what we desire most, the blind acceptance just didn't fit with Cat's world-weary persona.That particular issue aside, however, the characterization was a goodly part of what made this story so much fun.  Wyman's characters have great chemistry, and their back-and-forth made me giggle aloud more than once.  I felt that Marius, as the love interest, got slightly short shrift in his development; there were hints that there might be more to him than snark, but his development seemed to be wildly outpaced by the growing of Cat's attraction to him.  Similarly, the resolution of his character arc fell a tad flat; I think if he'd gotten a touch more development it would have had more emotional impact.My last criticism (really!  I promise!) is more in the grey area of stylistic issues, and may well just be personal preference, but:  one of the things I liked most about Cat was her agency and resourcefulness.  So it was more than a little jarring to have her biggest character flaw be crippling self-doubt.  Again, this is probably tied in to the pacing; if we'd gotten to know her in a little more depth, it might have felt more natural and less like a switch was being flipped (you're incredibly talented!  But nobody likes you!  But you can fight off shark demons!  But you'll never be good at anything!).  It felt to me like she was a proactive character often being forced into a passive role, and I found that incredibly frustrating - even her character arc of learning to take responsibility for herself and owning her own power was curtailed by a plot that, by necessity, was making her a glorified barter token.  (Related side note:  I get that gods don't care about human rights and all that, but I found Cat's consistently being threatened with sexual harassment/violence slightly distasteful, especially given that she was in a position to do so little about it - it felt like a cheap way to raise the stakes.)  Fortunately the aforementioned character arc seems to have taken her past much of that insecurity, so I'm hoping that'll be less of a problem in the next book.That sounds like a lot of issues, and it is, but much can be forgiven for that holy grail of guilty-pleasure reads: compulsive readability.  And in that, "Wild Card" delivers in spades.  Wyman's world is an engrossing one, and more than once during the day I found my thoughts wandering back to it; the only reason I didn't devour it all in one night is that I was trying to read critically as well as just for fun.  This is a very promising start to a series; I will absolutely read the next one, and can say without a doubt that I would even if I didn't know the author.