Monday, July 30, 2012

Flicker by Kaye Thornbrugh

Title: Flicker
Series: Flicker
Author: Kaye Thornbrugh
Length: 7066 Kindle units
Rating: 4 stars

The Plot

One evening, sixteen-year-old Lee wanders into a faerie revel and becomes a favored painter of the court. When a boy named Nasser trades for her release, she finds herself back in the real world, seven years after she left, though she hasn’t aged a day. Unable to go back to her old life, Lee finds herself among other mortals who know about the faerie world. But Lee was never supposed to leave the revel, and there is one faerie who will do anything to get her back.

The Good

I really liked the characters in Flicker. The story was about humans who were close enough to the magical world of the fae that they couldn’t live normal lives, and I enjoyed seeing how the characters tried to fit between the worlds. We saw a lot of what was going on from the point of view of Lee, who wasn’t all that interesting in and of herself but who had a unique perspective in that she was new to the magical world. The next character we meet is Filo, who comes off as cold but who nonetheless tries to meet his responsibilities, even though he feels he has been abandoned by everyone who ever loved him. And the last main character is Nasser, who tries to be good to everyone, even when it means taking too much on himself. This creates problems with his brother Jason, who feels that Nasser doesn’t trust him enough. (Their relationship actually reminds me of Sam and Dean from Supernatural, so I have high hopes that Jason will start drinking demon blood and killing people in order to prove that he doesn’t need his big brother. Or maybe everyone will take the boring and mature route.)

The Bad

The first chapter of Flicker? Totally needs to go. I start reading this stuff about Lee and her friend Kendall getting ready to go to a party, and then they start arguing because Kendall wants to hang out with the popular crowd and Lee doesn’t. So I’m like, Okay, I see what kind of book this is going to be. I hope there are cute boys at the party!  Except Lee doesn’t go to the party and gets sucked off to faerieland instead.

And then suddenly we’re in chapter 2, and it’s 7 years later, and I’m reading about these other characters who do not have anything resembling normal lives. And I’m okay with this once I get into it because, like I said, these characters are interesting, and I care about them. But I find myself wondering why chapter 1 existed at all considering that nothing in it is remotely plot relevant. I mean, yes, it matters that Lee had a life before she got sucked into the faerie realm, but it doesn’t matter at all what that life is.

The Romance

Nasser rescues Lee from the faeries because he feels some supernatural attraction to her, and we are consequently unsurprised when that attraction grows once they get back to the real world. In all honesty, I found the romance a little boring and obvious. There were so many boys hanging around Lee – the other girl on the team doesn’t join the group until nearly the end of the book – that I wanted to see some kind of love triangle. But, alas, I was to be disappointed in this. Though I do have some hopes for book 2, though that’s mostly because when it comes to fictional romance, I am an eternal optimist

Will I read more?

I finished reading Flicker about a day ago, and since then I find myself thinking, I need to do blog reading, but that’s good cuz I’m reading that really good one about the faeries. And then I am sad because I realize that I have finished Flicker, and whatever comes next might be as good. Regardless, I always take it as a good sign for a book when I want to go back to reading it. The author’s web site says that the next book in the series will be out in winter 2012, which I assume at this point means around December. I have added her blog to the list that I follow and plan to pick up the next installment when it appears.

See Details for Book on    Amazon   

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review! I'm glad you enjoyed Flicker, even if the first chapter wasn't quite your cup of tea. ;)

    Also, you officially win the award for Best Line In A Review of Flicker: "Their relationship actually reminds me of Sam and Dean from Supernatural, so I have high hopes that Jason will start drinking demon blood and killing people in order to prove that he doesn’t need his big brother." I'm not sure why, but I cackled at that line--actually cackled.

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    1. I am glad you enjoyed my random Supernatural comparison. I always worry that such things will make me seem nuts. Which, you know, they might to people who have never watched Supernatural. But they are the ones missing out.

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