Friday, November 12, 2010

Review: The Invisible Order Book 1: Rise of the Darklings (ARC)

I feel bad that I haven't posted in a week, since I've been visiting other blogs, and worse, this review was written two weeks ago and I just forgot to post it.


Emily is an eleven year old girl in Victorian England trying her best to take car of herself and her brother since the disappearance of their parents.  On the way to work one day though, she stumbles upon two factions of fighting Piskies.  At first, she tries to ignore what she saw, but very quickly gets pulled into the conflict anyway.  she is left trying to figure out who the good guys are: the Seelie, the Unseelie or the humans of The Order.  She also wonders why both groups f faye seem to know who she is.  On her adventure, she travels through London, into the office of the Order (numerous times) and insisted the courts of the faye.

REVIEW:
Characters:
Emily: At times a little stuck up and definitely acted older than her age (though this is not due to bad writing,  
           rather the circumstances she was stuck with).  Overall she became a likable heroin, though, who 
           didn't  let herself get pushed around and always did what she thought was "right".  
 William: A bratty younger brother who doesn't like to be told what to do or left out of anything.  There 
           were small hints that he's going to be a likable character, but in reality he only appears in the book for 
           a few pages, so it wasn't enough to tell. 
Jack:  A street urchin and thief he is also a good friend to Emily and is always trying to look out for her and 
           help her out on her quest.  He has a lot of attitude that and acts as though nothing can stop him,         
           because he calls himself "Spring-Heeled Jack."
There are other characters of note in the story, but to describe them would ruin the suspense of finding out whether they stay or become good or bad.   

Plot:
Overall, I felt that the plot was interesting.  Things that seemed too contrived in the beginning began to make sense as the story progressed. All the different places that Emily finds herself during her journey, really adds to enjoyment of the story; it seems like a real adventure.  Also, they really have you wondering who can be trusted and what everyone's true motives were. 
I have to plaints about the story though.  The first, is that it seemed rather obvious to me as the story went on, how the faye knew about Emily.  Second, the story takes place over only three days, but really it seems that they packed way more into those three days than should be possible.  Or maybe, when you go on an adventure where the stakes are that high, you really can accomplish that much.   
I love the description in this story.  I could see both London as it was then, but even more, I could see the fay perfectly.
While I had a couple of complaints, overall I enjoyed this book and look forward to seeing how the second book of this series unfolds.

 

1 comment:

  1. still have to read my copy. your pic of doll and book is adorable.

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