Jarrah's review
Alchemy (Collins Flamingo)
by Margaret Mahy
Jarrah's review
Alchemy (Collins Flamingo) by Margaret Mahy
Jarrah's review
rating:
bookshelves:
author-margaretmahy,
broadgenre-ya,
cliche-spells,
country-newzealand,
genre-yafantasy,
setting-realworld
YA fantasy. When charming, intelligent highschool student Roland inexplicably commits a petty crime, he finds himself blackmailed by a favourite teacher into befriending misfit Jess Ferret. But Jess has her own problems, and they're bigger and darker than Roland could have imagined.
I loved this book. I knew I loved it from the first page. It opened with a dream sequence, and I still loved it. There are things about Mahy's style that don't work for me: in particular, the dialogue, although it's spirited and interesting, doesn't quite have a natural rhythm. I buy into it, though, to gain entry to Mahy's world. Her use of magic, of character motivation, the way she describes what happens to Jess's house ... just fantastic.
I loved this book. I knew I loved it from the first page. It opened with a dream sequence, and I still loved it. There are things about Mahy's style that don't work for me: in particular, the dialogue, although it's spirited and interesting, doesn't quite have a natural rhythm. I buy into it, though, to gain entry to Mahy's world. Her use of magic, of character motivation, the way she describes what happens to Jess's house ... just fantastic.
