Sunday, December 4, 2011

The Splendor Falls, by Rosemary Clement-Moore

The Splendor Falls, by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Quote:
"Don't be obtuse princess. It's only because I'm a gentleman that I haven't let you know that I find Victorian ruffles insanely hot." -Rhys

Alright so... essentially, I enjoyed this book. I say this AFTER I finished it. If you had asked me at page 150, 250, 350... I would have said something along the lines of... "WHAT THE FREAKING FREAK IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?!?! JFIOSDJIOHJFASKMCLKAJSJRIOWJdsjfioweioafnewhjioajeklrj! CAN WE GET ON WITH IT ALREADY?!?"

Truly, I would have given it up... had it not been for Gigi. Thank goodness for 6-pound fluffy reject designer handbag dogs... because she saved this book.

The Splendor Falls is a 513 page book. Of the Young Adult Urban Fantasy Genre. However, it isn't until page 405, yes that would be FOUR HUNDRED AND FIVE, that MAGIC is confirmed as part of the plot.

405.

It's not even BROUGHT UP until a few pages earlier (page 393, to be exact).

That's a lot of pages to read of Sylvie Davis mucking around Bluestone Hills, not knowing what's going on. There's a few ghostly encounters and some skepticism towards the motives of the Teen Town Council, particularly Shawn Maddox, and some love/hating going on with Welsh hottie Rhys, as well as some prime time pouting over the loss of Sylvie's ballet career... but other than that, it's just mucking around the family mansion-turned-almost-open-inn, and gardening.

That's where Gigi saves the day. Like I said, good ol' reject designer handbag chihuahuas. :)

Anyways, once the whole magic thing is FINALLY put on the map, the books lights up like a Christmas tree, and it becomes so much more entertaining, exciting, and pleasing to read. I truly believe that if Ms. Clement-Moore had condensed the first 400 pages into like, 150, or 200 tops, then it would have flowed faster, easier, and been simply more pleasing to read. There was simply a TON of material to get through.

Because Sylvie's quest for info on her ancestors took her to all different sources all over the course of the book, it became patchy, confusing, and as a reader, you felt like the information was all over the map, and yet wasn't drawing any conclusions, for Sylvie or you as a reader. Also, often during coversations throughout the book, I felt like they jumped topics without making sense on many different occasions. Am I the only one who felt that? Like, they were alluding to one thing, like Hannah, and then all of a sudden they were talking about the Welsh legends, with no segue whatsoever? I got confused..... or, not confused, but thought it was really strange and RANDOM...

AND WHAT THE HECK DOES THE TITLE "The Splendor Falls" MEAN? Am I just stupid and can't make the connection to anything? I mean, there are a couple of LITERAL slips and "falls" during the course of the book... Hannah falling in the river, Clara down the stairs, and of course, Slyvie's epic fall that broke her leg in the first place etc., but I wouldn't have referred to them as SPLENDORific in anyway. And there weren't any sort of WATERfalls along the river, splendor or otherwise... Someone please explain it to me?

See, as much as I seriously dislike the one-word title craze going on amongst the YA genre, at least you can generally UNDERSTAND the reference. Grrrrrr.

Anyways, I'm glad Gigi didn't end up dying in some sort of heroic deed at the end or anything, because I REALLY would have been pissed off. Like, seriously pissed off. Like, throw the book at the wall pissed off.

And I don't even LIKE chihuahuas.


The book just need less of the "what's going on?" feel (first 405 pages), and a whole lot more of the really good last 100 pages feel.

No comments:

Post a Comment