Carlos has been trying to track a series of disasters that
have been hitting a park. It looks like ghostly influence that needs dealing
with and, as an agent of the Council, that’s definitely his job.
But this job hits very close to home as it involves some of the people close to him – including Kia and Sasha – now mother to his children. He uncovers a terrifying and alien cult that brings several disparate people together to save or avenge their loved ones and put an end to this terrifying force
The whole concept and world setting of this book is fun,
interesting and new. The enemy, the nature of it and its beliefs (which I really
liked because it pointed to a very well thought out system) were all excellent.
The research to get there was really clumsy and slow, but the characters and
their individual involvement was excellent. How the plot lines all came
together was fun and perfectly brought together every loose end – though until
they all come together and all the loose ends are explained it’s kind of
frustrating and annoying.
And it had some really excellent twists at the end that I didn’t see coming which was a definite bonus
This whole world setting of this series is really like
nothing I’ve ever seen before – originality is precious and a good plot to go
with it is like diamonds
Like with the previous book, I’m not a huge fan of the
voice in this book – I don’t like it, find it hard to follow but at the same
time do think it adds to the setting and characterisation, which is good. In
the last book I found the voice a little… dated (which wouldn’t entirely be
inaccurate because, after all, who knows when Carlos was actually alive since
he can’t remember his past?). This book changes that which in some ways works
better as it flows more – but at the same time it makes the language of the
previous book even more glaring. It’s like a subtle retcon.
I also found this book jarring. We have a huge number of
characters running around now (all of Reza’s team, all of Carlos’s group, Riley’s
ghosts, Kia’s friends, the Survivors and some people from… somewhere but I
honestly have no freaking clue where) which is damn consuming, especially since
they’re not all very distinct. I’ve confused Riga and Rohan more than a few
times and sometimes another character has appeared and I’ve no clue who they
are where they’re from or what they’re doing.
On top of this, especially in the beginning of the book
we have not just several POV switches (I mean, I can get behind Kia and Carlos
and Reza POV – but we had to have POV for a completely unrelated ambulance
driver with a Jamaican-Russian-accent-because-head-injury as well?) but also
several tense switches from Kia as well as she swooped back into her past
without a whole lot of notice that we HAD swooped into the past (let alone why)
to say nothing of her frequent diving into song lyrics. It is not an easy book
to follow
In addition, for much of the beginning of the book, these
three POV characters don’t have a great deal of relevant intersection – which left
me wondering whose story am I actually following here and why (especially in
Reza’s case because here was a completely brand new character dropped in from
nowhere and I’m now following her around? Nice and all, but why?). Kia is
following her own teenaged drama and being awesome while doing it. Carlos is
moping after Sasha (and being damn annoying while doing it) while Reza is
leering at women while pining over her lost love and being an enforcer for a prostitution
ring (Reza’s introduction is pretty awful). It’s a while before these
storylines randomly crash together.
So, writing wise, this book was a struggle. It took a lot
of work to follow
I did like Kia’s point of view, it did a lot to really
help overturn the poor depiction of women that was a problem in the last book.
Now we have a woman who is capable, intelligent, strong, determined, driven
very much in tune with her own mind and what she wants. She’s also very human
and very real – yes, she doesn’t always make good choices (like getting really
really emotional or angry or otherwise silly – because that’s what people are
like), she’s not always perfect. She has a bad temper, she gets inpatient and
frustrated and passionate and us generally flawed in very human ways. I like
her a lot – she’s an excellent character because she is so rounded.
I also really liked Reza who not only also added to this
book’s female inclusion, but is also a lesbian and an excellent kick arse, well
dressed character. Her introduction makes it very clear she’s a lesbian and
doesn’t try to downplay her sexuality – but it’s also clumsy enough as to make
her seem pretty predatory which isn’t exactly well done. It’s overdone and to
have a woman, recently bereaved from the loss of her beloved, be drooling over
another pretty young thing the very first moment we meet her is just not a
great introduction. But from there we see a lot more of her – her lethality,
her professionalism even when she’s grieving deeply. She’s ruthless, but still
cares; she has little time for rules, but still has an unyielding moral compass
that drivers and informs her character. In other words, like Kia, she’s
complex, well rounded, flawed but interesting. I liked her.
I did not even remotely like Carlos’s story. Like the
last book he’s almost entirely focused on Sasha – only now it’s love interest
Sasha and his precious little babies. Occasionally we have a drop in to worry
about Kia, but otherwise it’s the same obsession. The bonus is that, with the other
protagonists, there’s a whole lot less focus on this obsession, but it also really
draws attention to how little I care about Carlos or enjoy his POV. Really so
much of this book is Carlos about to charge madly into danger without the
slightest thought, only to be stopped by one of the characters with an ounce of
sense. Over and over, he just tends to follow people and be emotional.
This book, like the previous book, is full of POC,
specifically Black and Latino. Reza and Carlos are both Latino, Kia is Black
and the vast majority of the side characters are also Black and Latino. But,
let the first book, there’s also a real effort to include different ethnicities
as well as just racial categorisation – a character isn’t always just Latino,
they are often also labelled as Puerto Rican or Brazilian for example. There’s
more cultural information (including an excellent discussion of capoeira) and some
really good discourse quite smoothly include in the book like Kia objecting to
carrying a weapon because she’s Black and knows it can get her shot by police,
or the acknowledgment of which neighbourhoods are likely to have a rapid police
response (and I only say “quite” smoothly not because it’s inserted clumsily
but because of the aforementioned tense/pov/voice shifting that made none of
this writing smooth).
Reza is an awesome lesbian character (despite her
beginnings) and she meets a bisexual librarian who is also awesome (they’re
also older – in their 50s and 60s which is very rare for depictions of LGBT
people), this is a definite step up from the exist-to-serve minor depictions of
the first book (and Baba Eddie is no better in this book, having an even
smaller role). We don’t really have an improvement of gay male characters,
though, beginning with some unnecessary homophobia in the beginning of the book
(authors, please stop putting homophobia in the mouths of gay characters like
that makes it ok) and we have Gio introduced as another gay male character –
but he isn’t much of a character. He pretty much exists to be an emotional tool
for Kia – he’s there for her to be angry about, he’s there for her to be sad.
He’s there to be a facilitator for her emotions – he doesn’t have any real independent
existence beyond that. He’s an add-on to a straight woman’s emotional
development, growth and pain.
This leaves me loving the story and the world setting and
its excellent originality and really liking some of the characters. It leaves
me loving the diversity. It leaves me admiring. And it leaves me really not
liking the writing style or how this book was put together. It didn’t feel
ordered or structured, it felt like everything was kind of mooshed together and
disjointed and confusing and general not flowing. The frame of the book – the characters,
the concept, the story are good – but how it’s all been assembled is really
clumsy and really hard work to read which is a real shame. If it were just put together
better, if it wasn’t so much work to actually read that really took the fun out
of it.
