false 5 3 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Apr 27 06:35:19 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 06:35:19 -0700 2009
Nick is an ordinary teen who hates to read, doesn't like school, can't get along with his mother, idolizes his older brother, and carries a big sword around with him to kill demons. Also magicians.

I got an advance copy of this book and was to review it in exchange, and it took me less than a day to read the book and more than two weeks to try to work up a review that didn't spoil any of the plot twists (THEY ARE SO GOOD!) or give away the ending (ALSO SO GOOD! WANT SEQUEL *NOW*!) or just look like me typing over and over again in capslock READ THIS BOOK READ IT NOW DO NOT STOP DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT $200 READ THE BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!!!!11!

So, as you can tell, I enjoyed it.

Brennan has many talents as a writer. She has an ease with dialog and a knack for giving characters different voices; she has a creative mind and has created a fascinating alternate real world for her characters to inhabit. She clearly understands the necessity for (totally hilarious) comic relief in the midst of her wrenching drama, and lots of adventure to even out the emotional turmoil.

But I think what draws me to her work most strongly is her ability to create flawed, realistic relationships between people; there's an inherent brokenness in many of the relationships in the story that makes them more interesting and more touching than the shallow relationships (perfect or imperfect) that some authors try to get away with. Nick loves his brother but doesn't understand him; he's alienated from his mother, who abhors the sight of him, but he wants her love; he's attracted to and repulsed by girls; he's struggling with all of the normal concerns of adolescence, plus also the demons and the zombies and the magicians, and he's struggling through doing the best he can. And that's just Nick--Alan and his martyr complex, his fragile attraction to Mae...

I could go on and on, but I'll stop now and just say: READ THIS BOOK. PREORDER IT NOW. CALL IN SICK TO WORK. ORDER A PIZZA AND STAY IN.

You can thank me later.]]>