The paranormal world is one of ups and downs…For example, you can read 6 or 7 fantastic books in a row and then BLAH you run into a swamp. You would think that over the years my love of reading and my somewhat educated mind would learn that anticipation is a horrendous habit, yet there I was 12:30am Monday morning, hopped up on caffeine and waiting not so patiently for the Kindle faeries to bring me a prize.
“Light Beneath Ferns” was supposed to be a smash, I didn’t just decide this for myself, it has been splashed across the literary world for a few months now making several (including mine) lists of what to read in 2010. So as I sat on the edge of my bed, freezing my ass off cause my husband steals the covers, I opened the well worn cover on my Kindle and began to read.
The first chapter was brilliant. Spouting warnings like…”If death and the dead make you afraid, you better just stop reading and go take a nap.” and I loved the heroin of the book, she was brooding, witty, sarcastic and an overall pain in the ass (kinda like me) but as for the remainder of the book? Yes, thanks….I think I’ll go take that nap you suggested.
The concept of this book was captivating…very quiet girl who would rather spend time with bones than live people moves to town and meets mysterious disappearing boy. Great right? Just reading that sentence alone could spin a million different scenarios into your head, unfortunately…the book spent more time focusing on the emotional instability of Elizah and her screwed up family than it actually did with the “supposedly” scary scenarios.
Elizah likes to be alone, to her, talking is unnecessary and “fitting in” is the last thing on her list. After her father gambles all of the family’s money away and then jumps trial, Elizah and her equally as quirky mother hoof it out of town only to turn around and take up residence in a old house that borders a cemetery. Elizah, wanting nothing more than a little peace and quiet wanders the property eventually running across a human jaw bone. With bones on her mind and a mother on her back Elizah set out to find the truth, but instead finds Nathaniel, a boy that speaks like a fortune cookie and dresses like a pauper.
After the first chapter the plot becomes a tangled mess of witty but sloppy writing. All the questions are… in the end answered, (some very abstractly) but with the book being so short (it took me only a few hours to read it) there was hardly time for proper character developement leaving me with a somewhat distant or lost feeling. “Spollen’s” YA moments were lacking the push/pull that is necessary to keep an audience enthralled and the so called “scary” was almost completely non-existent. What was supposed to be a bright shining mark in this years literary catalog was nothing more than a mild jog through the woods with an overbearing guidance counselor and paragraphs of sloppy descriptives.
My suggestion? Save your money…if you require substance in your reads than this book is just to short to make any sort of lasting impression.
Happy reading my fellow Outcast and remember: if you find a random human bone in the ground just leave it there… picking it up and turning it into your pet is just plain weird.
For a complete book description click Image
[Rating:2/5]
