This is the sort of book that, if you chose not to take it too seriously, can be a really fun read.

I personally adore the steampunk genre, especially the angsty, steamy young adult steampunk genre, so I ended up enjoying this book. I do, however, see why a lot of people didn't.

The characters are all silly schoolgirls making stupid schoolgirl decisions. There are a number of points where you wish you were there just to reach over and slap some of the characters.

Also, I felt some parts of the story were very underdeveloped. After she left India, Gemma never talked about India which kind of bothered me. She grew up there, spent her whole life there, but mentioned it maybe three times throughout the course of the book.
And Kartik. Let's talk about Kartik. I feel very strongly that his character could have been so much more than what it turned out to be. He was interesting like the first time you met him, and then after that he appeared at the most random parts of the story. And he just never felt clever enough. Like a kid like that who works for these fancy magic people and stealthily pretends to be a Romanian gypsy ought to have my respect, but he doesn't, because I feel all he ever did was bound around the woods like a fool.

And even though the whole realms thing is the main plot of this series, I've found myself flipping through the realms parts just to get back to the regular Victorian go of things.

Libba did do an excellent job with both the Victorian and the boarding school aspects of this book, and I think if it weren't for either of those things, I wouldn't have ended up liking this.

I do feel like four stars is the smallest bit too high for this, but oh, well. It is.

It's telling when most of the popular goodreads reviews of this book, positive as well as negative, contain some sort of disclaimer about needing to cut this book slack because it's a YA book. But is a juvenile audience a legitimate excuse for juvenile writing?

The story is this: It's 1895, and 16-year-old Gemma Doyle's mother has just died a tragic and mysterious death in India. Gemma, as a result, is shipped off to an England boarding school where rich young ladies (and one scholarship student) learn the important skills of painting, waltzing, and French. Gemma's roommate, Ann, is the one scholarship student -- orphaned, plain-looking, lonely, deliberately cutting her skin as a means of relief. Gemma also meets a clique straight out of the movie "Mean Girls" -- Felicity (the dominant leader), Pippa (the beautiful and dumb sidekick), and a few other forgettable hangers-on. It's fierce enmity at first sight, with a variety of nasty pranks exchanged until Gemma discovers an incriminating secret about Felicity. Whereupon Gemma and Felicity immediately become the best of friends (nothing like blackmail to forge a deep friendship), forming a new foursome comprised of Felicity and Pippa, and Gemma and Ann. Gemma gradually discovers that she has magic powers which can take her to supernatural realms, and that she can even bring her new bosom buddies with her. But -- surprise, surprise -- there's a dark side to all this power, and it proves dangerous.

Where to begin? Well, first of all, the story is rather anachronistic or just plain artificial in a lot of ways. I guess I'm kind of a purist, but I can't help feeling that if you want to write about this era, do it right. When I read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, I actually felt like I was reading a Victorian novel even though it was written only a few years ago. Here, I alternated between feeling like Libba was superimposing modern-day sensibilities and feeling like she was grossly exaggerating the norms of the times. On the one hand, you've got these Victorian teenagers drinking and discussing sex graphically from a pretty well-informed perspective at a time when revealing an ankle was considered scandalous. On the other hand, you've got a singularly beautiful girl being completely forced by her parents (absolutely no veto power granted to her, even though Jane Austen's heroines seemed perfectly capable of rejecting unwanted marriage proposals) to marry a man 40 years older than she is (come on, with her beauty they couldn't at least find a younger guy?) because he has money. I can't claim to know enough about that era to know whether either, or both, of those things were completely inconsistent with the times but they sure didn't ring true to me.

Ditto for the boarding school where the girls seem to get away with murder because the headmistress (called Mrs. Nightwing even though she's apparently a spinster -- did I miss something?) drinks sherry at night and remains blissfully unaware of the girls sneaking out at all hours. And Gemma's cynicism and inner sarcasm also beg the question of anachronism; I'm not saying people didn't have negative thoughts back then, but I think that expressing them in that particular way, even inwardly, is distinctly contemporary. Someone I work with once told me that her teenage daughter says things to her that (and this is a direct quote), "I never even dared to think about my mother." I think there's something to that -- if you go back a few generations, there were certain thoughts that not only weren't expressed, but weren't indulged. You'll never find this kind of direct snarkiness in real Victorian books; if it's there at all, it's expressed in a far more subtle and classy way.

Little aside/disclaimer here: truthfully, I'm not sure how much to criticize Libba for what was arguably a legitimate artistic decision. As she says, "There's definitely an element of 'fusion cooking' at work here. I wanted to have all the trappings of that [Victorian:] era...But I wanted [the girls:] to have a universality to them, too; a sort of modernity of feeling." Is it wrong to try to set a book in Victorian times and, at the same time, try to give your heroine some thoughts and feelings that would make her more relatable for 21st century readers (especially teens)? When I think back on the Victorian books I've read, though, I found the heroines quite relatable within the confines of their being consistent with their context. I didn't need them to express 21st century cynicism in order for me to empathize with them.

Complaint #2 -- way too many coincidences/artificial contrivances. Kartik, an attractive (of course) young man who witnessed Gemma's mother's death, keeps popping up conveniently at the right places at the right times -- first in India, then camping outside of Gemma's British school with the gypsies -- and is somehow present to warn or protect Gemma at practically every critical plot turn. Didn't he have a life? Was it part of the magic angle that he always knew where to be and when? And when Pippa has her seizure while the girls were practicing waltzing under the headmistress's supervision, naturally it was Miss Moore, the avant-garde art teacher (think Julia Roberts' character in "Mona Lisa Smile" or Miss Jean Brodie) who was conveniently present (why? It wasn't art class) to help out and as a result, to be available for a significant heart-to-heart with Gemma. And when Pippa later tries to break off her engagement, why is the headmistress involved? And why does she call a meeting not only with Pippa, but with the other members of the clique, to discuss the whole thing? Wouldn't this be more appropriately dealt with between Pippa, her fiance, and her parents?

Finally, I have to try to articulate my irritation with the writing. Here's a phrase I got from goodreads reviews that I've been longing to use -- the prose was clunky. CLUNKY. CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK. I felt like I was watching a bad movie. Transitions were abrupt or nonexistent, not to mention flat characters and often stilted dialogue.

The one good thing I have to say is that it was a fast read, and for all my complaints, not quite awful enough to abandon. And here or there, there was actually an interesting insight embedded among all the tripe. Hence the two stars.

Two words: it sucked.

Gemma lives in India with her parents. When her mom suddenly died in a mysterious attack, her family sends her to England to be a proper lady. She meets a group of bitches and they form this secret group to travel in another dimension. A shit load of gossip happens about here. Then... Drama, drama, drama. Oh look a handsome young man. More drama. Oh shit Gemma meets her mother in the other world and now she has to fight of Circe. Little tiny ass twist here in the last 20 pages. Ah well, the end.

Maybe I would've liked this a couple years back, but I really don't like it.

Only thing I can possibly say that is special is the settings in India. I felt like I was there. That part was nice. But after that, the whole book went to shit with its humongous amount of FLUFF and DRAMA where this girl is rejected because she isn't of high class or this other girl is cornered because she isn't pretty. Really? Where's the action in the book? Oh right, in the last 20 pages! I feel like I've wasted so much of my time. *regrets*

I waited a long time to read this book because of all the hype the series was getting, back when it was super popular. I guess I am just tired of being disappointed falling into all the hype of a supposed fantastic book or series. It has happened to the best of us. Well this one did not disappoint! It truly is fantastic and I am so glad that I have decided to jump on board and become fully immersed into this story.

The plot is amazing, engaging, exciting and super energetic. It is written in a great era as well, where so many things were unacceptable for women, but so very tempting. Tempting and forbidding enough for women to cling to and try to change them. I love that! I also love the writing style of this author so much, but I knew that already when I read The Diviners. I just found myself lost within the story so many times. It is that feeling of being lost that you never want to be rescued from.

The characters are absolutely stunning. Their development is amazing and I am sure they will grow even more over the course of this series. I can't say enough about Gemma. She is strong and brave. And can I say she doesn't take anything from anyone. She knows what she wants, she knows what is right and true, and she is not afraid to let people know. She is a warrior! I can't wait to see how far she goes in this story. I am sure it will be pretty far. Her sidekicks, Pippa, Ann and Felicity are also great characters that steadily grow on readers as they progress through the story.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good action packed fantasy, because this one has it all, a little something for everyone. I really don't think too many people would be disappointed with this one. I so look forward to the other books in this series, and will hopefully get to them all very soon.

Update: Third book sucks!

It appears that this book tends to polarize its readers. There are as many haters of it as there are lovers. I am one of those who happens to really like it. I am a big fan of Victorian literature as well as the boarding school setting; and it was a pleasure for me to delve into a world of this Jane Eyre-ish teen drama.

There were many things that I found enchanting about this book. First of all, I have to give Bray a special credit for choosing a rather original setting and issues. The combination of Indian colonial culture and 19th-century English boarding school for girls created one great atmosphere. Plus focus on the exploration of confines of Victorian society rather than on oh so popular these days teenage romances was a winner for me. I also enjoyed the dynamic of newly forming relationship between 4 very different girls who all are plagued by their real even nowadays problems and who find an outlet and some semblance of temporary freedom in the Realms. Finally, the mythology in this book was original, rich, and layered.

As for weaknesses, there were a few as well. First, we never see the full scope of Gemma's supposedly special "powers," in fact it seems they are limited to her ability to transport her friends into the Realms to do rather silly and childish things. The book doesn't fare well as a stand-alone either. There is definitely a lot of foreshadowing that is never fully realized in the conclusion and is a set-up for the next two books. But because the entire trilogy is already out, this didn't really bother me.

In addition, I've read (or rather listened to) an audio version of the book and have to note that narrator does a commendable job aside from making Kartik speak with an atrocious Indian accent, even though in the book in was clearly stated he spoke English without one.

Overall, this book was a pleasant reading experience. I am planning on finishing the entire trilogy.

Reading challenge: #1 - B

1.5 stars

I'm giving it a comparative .5 of a star, because this isn't AS BAD as some of my other one star reads, at least in terms of writing quality. And that is probably the only positive thing I have to say.

This book was deeply not for me. A lot of the complaints I have below could be simply written off as things that are of the time in which this was written, but that removes all responsibility from the author for what she has created. Bray tried to say some things about the constraints of the time period, misogyny and the lack of agency pushed upon young girls, but it gets drowned out in one dimensional characters, poor representation and a simple (at best) plot. Even as the characters try to rebel against the constraints, those decisions and rebellions come off as extremely frustrating. Gemma is gullible and makes nonsensical decisions. I guess that would've been more tolerable if everything else in this book weren't also annoying af.

I honestly think this story is supposed to be about four friends coming together to form a sort of coven? Friendship doesn't go here. This is better described as a long series of inexplicable girl hate. There is also a ton of body shaming and fat shaming that is uncomfortable to read. There is also some self-harm depicted that is not confronted in any meaningful way.

The hint at a romance was rushed and strange. Worse, the love interest is fetishized for being non-white. In additional racist bullshit, all of the rest of the non-white characters were portrayed as oversimplified stereotypes, violent or subservient. Bray repeatedly uses the g-word to refer to Romanian people and even if it is "era appropriate," it is still a slur and I didn't want to read it a million times.

I didn't enjoy a lick of this. Truly, it was a joyless read.

I love the rich historical feel of the story line, both from the eastern and western part of the world. I wasn’t so taken with the bickering and cliques of privileged school girls.
Overall, it was very enjoyable, beautifully imaginative, and the world building was great. I will give this a four star rating.

After several years, I finally managed to reread this book. This time around, I had greater faith in Bray after having read her Diviners series to the end. I did like it better, too. I feel like I better understood the narrative decisions that Bray was making. However, I still think that the book fell into a few too many Orientalist traps. Bray does a good thing in trying to make this book diverse, but the problem that she runs into is that there isn't quite enough diversity. This means that any characters that are not Anglo-Saxon English seem exotic and strange. When you add in the gender dynamics of the book (young English women reaching for liberation, both socially and sexually) the racial dynamics become even more frustrating.

Overall, I do think this was a good book, and I will try to continue the series. But I have to say that this book did earn the criticism I initially leveled at it--but that a wider perspective has also improved my reaction to it.

Original Review, published Dec 2010:
Orientalist trash.

This was, without a doubt, one of the most irritating books I've ever read. It continues and reinforces Orientalist characterizations without a single qualm. As a scholar of nineteenth-century British literature, I'm used to seeing Orientalist tropes used in books from my period. While they are regrettable, they're also part and parcel of the time in which they were written. While this novel may have been set in nineteenth-century Victorian India and England, there was no need for Bray to continue those same tropes. As this is a fantasy novel, that sort of realism in the setting was not necessary, especially when it is never condemned within the novel.

It's been six years since I read this book, and it still makes me angry. Sometimes, I think I would like to reread it just to confirm that it was as hateful as I first thought. However, that tends to be a passing urge. Life is simply too short to waste on bad books--especially when I have a dissertation to write.

Oh, if you need to understand what Orientalism is, look to this book: Orientalism by Edward W. Said.

I read this book because it's the kind of genre I usually enjoy: Victorian era fantasy. But the farther I got into this book, the more I wanted to say to the author, "Wait, what???"

When Gemma is sent to boarding school, she is predictably set upon by the school bullies. However, quite soon Gemma becomes friends with these girls. Not because they're nice girls at heart (none of them had even a shadow of morals or ethics, or even a sense of human decency) but because Gemma wants to be ACCEPTED. Do tell me, Libba Bray, HOW is this a good message to send to teen girls?????

The fantasy was absolutely horrid: the kind that is never truly explained. I was left confused and irritated at the end of the final scene, which I think was supposed to have moved me in some way.

And finally, this whole book had a racy feel to it that left me feeling contaminated, like I'd just touched something slimy. Ick. I'm still shivering. I would have stopped reading, but I am cursed in that I always have to know what happens next. But at least the book wrapped itself up, so I'm not the LEAST bit tempted to read the next two books.

In conclusion, I would like to simply say this: if you are looking for likeable characters, an original plot, and a clean story in general, then please: do yourself a favor. Do not read this book.

I had to take this audiobook back to the library, and honestly, I am not in the mood for right now with so much going on. I'll come back to this one day.

3.5 stars

This book had been on my TBR for ages and I’m so happy to say I finally read it!

I must say that I was intrigued by all the spiritual/magical elements involved in the storyline but I was left with so many questions! I just wish we could have knows more instead of some bits and pieces that sometimes did not make a lot of sense. I’m sure in the next two books there will be a lot to learn about Gemma’s visions and her “magic”.

The characters were just okay. I liked Gemma and also Kartik, even though I did not understand his exact role in the story, he was always on the sidelines and I would have loved to see him more involved.
The other girls weren’t very nice. Ann was kind of a pushover and could be easily influenced by the others. In the end Felicity revealed her true nature and almost got everyone killed. I don’t know how they can still be friends after how she behaved. Pippa wasn’t nice but I think she was the only one who had some kind of character development and I was happy to see her making a choice for herself.

I’m definitely going to read the second book in the series.

I swiped this out of the classroom one day because I had lunch duty and my choices were A) stare at the perpetual hacky sack game for 30 minutes or B) read something. As you can see, I didn't have much of a choice at all (it was one of those Eddie Izzard "Cake or death?" scenarios). When I began the book, I was immediately hooked--exotic locale, spirited protagonist, hint of the supernatural. However, it was a case of infatuation-at-first-sight that burned out rather quickly. After finishing the book, I was left with an overwhelming sensation of "meh."

Why did the book lose my interest so quickly? Here's a quickly compiled list of possible reasons:

A) Began in India, but then switched to an isolated boarding school for girls in Victorian England. Come on! They lost me as soon as they left an amazing setting with all kinds of possibility for a mediocre one.

B) It's a young adult book and those don't always sit well with me. I just couldn't connect to the four girls that form the clique in the book. Case in point: they begin dabbling in witchcraft and one uses her power to create the perfect Prince Charming and one uses hers to--shock!--be beautiful. Puh-leaze.

C) Speaking of the four girls, stereotypes in the extreme: the mysterious one with a dark secret; the beautiful, but tragic one; the rebellious spirit; and the plain girl who doesn't belong in this world of prestige and riches.

So why did I give it a 3? It's fairly well written, it has an interesting premise (though the execution falls flat), there are a few genuinely funny moments,and it will probably appeal to the intended audience. I may read the sequels, but it will be a bit before I muster up the interest in doing so.

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder