Review: Lots of Potential, but...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.I don't often read a book and feel that it should have been longer. Most of the time the opposite is true. At only about 250 pages, Laika could use some extra pages to help round out the world. We really know almost nothing about Trea where Laika comes from. There's a university, electricity and plumbing. They have pretty liberal views on sex and relationships and education. But modes of dress, appearance of the people, architecture, transportation (carriages are mentioned, but no indication of whether horseless carriages exist). We learn more about Lisan simply because this is where the adventure takes place, but aside from the rarity of leather shoes, we're given little to go on in terms of the appearance of the people. What about jewelry? Tattoos? Royka has black hair, and a beard when we first meet him. At the time I thought it was beard he'd grown on purpose, but later he shaves and it becomes apparent that it had only grown out because he'd been roughing it. I gathered that the two peoples were racially similar since Laika doesn't stand out as different, but that is all I had to go on.The premise of the story is good, and intrigued me. I liked the idea of a country that had closed itself off from the rest of the world and after many years has decided to open its borders to a handful of scholars so that it can get its own university up and running. Naive Laika, professional scholar - book smart, but real world ignorant, provided an interesting focal point. Royka, the mysterious young man that aids Laika, is even more appealing, though I think a bit too forgiving/accepting at the end of the book.I think my biggest frustration with this book is that it has a ton of potential and just doesn't go far enough to achieve it. Too much telling and not enough showing goes on. The first part of the story where Laika goes through the motions of quitting her job, breaking up with her boyfriend, saying goodbye to her parents - all of that could have been skipped, and the story could have opened up with Laika's traveling party being attacked by bandits. Who she is, why she's there, and how she got there could have been doled out in small bits while Laika awakes to a scream and then bolts into the night. Much more could have been done with that bandit scene to bring it to life. Terrified horses, a chase through the forest, maybe a struggle and escape from certain death. And all the while Laika could be relating important information. It would have added to the punch of the start of the story, rather than having us meet a bunch of people we'll never see again in the story, and who provide no real obstacle to Laika getting to go on her trip.I use that first part of the story as an example of what I felt happened throughout the story. There's good stuff here, but it needs to be opened up and fully realized. Right now it's more of a very wordy outline. There's scary stuff that happens in the story, but we the reader need to feel it not have it told to us. Don't tell us "I felt sick", describe the bile rising up to burn the back of Laika's throat, or the narrowing of her vision as she goes faint. Add noises, and smells and texture. Make us feel Laika's desperation when they can't find the other scholars. Maybe she breaks away and tries to find them herself only to have Royka drag her off before she gets hurt or killed.Some of the dialogue, especially between Laika and Royka was a lot of fun, and made up some of the better scenes in the story. More of that. Laika's got a bit of a smart mouth on her. She should use it elsewhere, not just with the love interest. Speaking of the love interest, I thought it was odd that a man from a very sexually repressed society would so easily fall into Laika's bed.I know this is coming across as a suggestion for editing, and perhaps that is not a bad idea. One of the nice things about being a publisher-author is the fact that you can go back and rework your story after you learn more. Two books I bought some time ago just got re-released with fixes and changes - cool. Like I said, there's good stuff here, it's just too rushed and too "telly".