This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous book, Keeper of the Lost Cities, or don't mind knowing spoilers for it.
SPOILER ALERT
Sophie Foster thought she was safe. Settled into her home at Havenfield, surrounded by friends, and using her unique telepathic abilities to train Silveny--the first female alicorn ever seen in the Lost Cities--her life finally seems to be coming together.
But Sophie's kidnappers are still out there. And when Sophie discovers new messages and clues from the mysterious Black Swan group, she’s forced to take a terrifying risk—one that puts everyone in incredible danger.
As long buried secrets rise to the surface, it’s once again up to Sophie to uncover hidden memories—before someone close to her is lost forever.
In this second book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series, Sophie must journey to the darkest corners of her luminous world in a sequel that will leave you breathless for more.
Continuing from the last book, I was curious to see what was next for Sophie. Having just scored a new power and an antagonistic teacher, not to mention discovering that she was created by a secret rebellion for some unknown purpose, there was a lot to look forward to (to say nothing of the multiple romance options cropping up). Some things delivered...some did not...
A lot of what I could say here would be a repeat of the last book, so I'll try to keep focused on what new things I noticed. This book takes place over a much shorter period of time—only two weeks for everything but the very, very end—so there's not nearly as much school-time as I was expecting. This resulted in much of the teased new school activities (particularly with Sophie's new instructor) being cut painfully short. On the bright side, it wasn't as derivative as school-year-per-book series go, but for being teased so heavily, I was disappointed in the lack of delivery. Still, I'm sure we'll get more school stuff eventually, so I suppose I can let it slide for now.
Well, I've definitely chosen my favorite of the possible love interests. Yeah, it's a little harem-ish to have three totally interested guys available for the main character—not to mention how many other perks she has going for her, what with her photographic memory and her other mental abilities—but I can't really complain about them much. Dex is a sweetheart boy-next-door with a jealous streak. Keefe is the slightly older bad-boy who is surprisingly supportive and empathetic. And Fitz is the older-boy, talented dreamboat. I still think Fitz and Keefe as love interests won't work as easily because of the age gap, but shove them together enough and I suppose something could develop.
I feel obligated to talk about Silveny a bit since she plays such a huge role in the story, but there's honestly not much to say. She's an added responsibility put on Sophie's shoulders and serves as both a distraction from more serious fare and a MacGuffin of sorts when the conflict comes to a head. Her training brings up interesting concepts, such as how altruistic is using captivity for preservation? Even if it's a sentient species? I trust we'll see more of her in upcoming books, so we'll see if anything more develops.
I was surprised by the tidbits about how recently the magical and human worlds separated. According to an exchange between Sophie and her adoptive father,
"I think Tolkien wrote them during the Nineteen Thirties or Forties.”So, you're telling me that elves and their completely peaceful society was involved with humanity during their World Wars??? I'm sorry, but how exactly did that work? I get that it wasn't complete involvement, but how exactly did the magical societies not intervene when the bombs were dropped? Or the camps were set up? Good lord, it's no wonder why there are secret rebellions inside their society if they can't intervene on a species' behalf at points like those.
“That’s back before the Human Assistance Program was banned.” Grady smiled when her eyebrows shot up. “We used to send members of the nobility in disguise to try to teach humans our ways. The treaties had fallen apart, but we still hoped to guide them, bring them out of the darkness and into a new age of light. In fact, most of the great human innovations of the last few centuries happened under elvin tutelage. Electricity. Penicillin. Chocolate cake. But too many of our gifts backfired, and a few decades ago the problems escalated to a point where the Council had no choice but to terminate the program and ban all human contact."
This book focuses a lot on mental health issues, particularly dealing with grief, depression, and guilt. We learned in the last book that elves rarely die, such that those who do experience the death of loved ones (such as Sophie's adopted parents) have a very hard time finding true empathy or support from those around them. Exile delves deeper into this with visiting Jodie's gravesite and her fiancé, who has nearly lost his mind due to grief. Then there's dealing with people who have lost their minds—or rather, broken them—when Sophie travels with Alden to the prison for which this book is named.
The whole concept of grief and guilt driving people to insanity is an interesting one, though I think it's a bit heavy-handed at times. It's not that I dislike the concept of having depression being in a kids book—I actually love children's television that explores that very issue—I just don't like the oversimplification of the mind breaking that illustrates it. They make a big deal about not succumbing to guilt-fed depression with wisdom like, "Guilt is a treacherous thing. It creeps in slowly, breaking you down bit by bit." But they don't show it as a slow descent with symptoms and warning signs, but rather an instantaneous shattering of the mind resulting in the afflicted only able to scream and flail with nothing of their memories or personality left. A mind broken by guilt is basically as good as dead in this world.
You'd think with a society so magically advanced that they'd have more options for mental therapy or general psychology. Sophie is constantly told not to feel guilty about things that happen around her, but if you know anything about mental health, just saying it doesn't really work. Therapy is having a conversation where you can run through all your problems and receive advice and feedback, not just a one-sentence cure-all of, "Stop feeling guilty," and you're done. They might have some form of medicine like our anti-depressants which we see used on Sophie once, but I got the feeling it was more of a short-term fix than a long-term treatment. Again, I appreciate the inclusion of mental health issues in this book, but I wish that the cure wasn't as easy as it seemed. Who knows, maybe these problems will be addressed again later? I hope so, at least.
I am curious how Sophie's honesty with the adults in her life will evolve in future installments. On the one hand, in most Middle Grade or Young Adult stories the adults are cut out either because they don't believe the dangers of the kids, or because the kids don't trust them to let them do what needs to be done. That was starting to be the case here until Sophie is put under the protection of a body-guard goblin, as well as constant surveillance by her very protective adopted parents. But when her escapades are about to be stopped by her authority figures, they hear her explanations and end up letting her go. I don't think I've ever seen this so early in a series, and I'm hoping the transparency between the kids and adults will continue to expand.
Overall, an engaging continuation to the story of Sophie and her Elvish world. I can definitely see more and more dissent rising through the cracks, and I'm eager to see what happens to make the other shoe drop. There's still a whole lot of this world left to explore and Sophie's ultimate role has yet to be revealed, so trust that I'll be back to check out the next book as soon as I can.
No comments :
Post a Comment
Let me hear you howl!