Emma Trevayne

A review I wrote in 2020:

)Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times by Emma Trevayne.

A steampunk middle grade adventure, sort of The Uncommoners meets Mortal Engines. 10-yearold
Jack Foster, normally away at boarding school but home from the holidays and terminally
bored, follows an intriguing magician through a doorway and finds himself in an alternative and
very different London.

It’s a dark, polluted and smoky city, where the sun doesn’t shine and the residents seem to avoid
the rain. Most of the citizens wear goggles to protect their eyes and metal nose grills to filter the
polluted air. Jack has followed the magician through the doorway in search of some excitement
and interesting opportunities; what he discovers is that the magician is feared in this London, and
that he has been trying to bring Jack to this place to serve as son to the ruling Lady of the land.

Jack is fortunate to find an early friend in Beth, a mechanical but sentient girl who needs to be
wound daily at the neck, and Doctor Snailwater but when the safety of his friends and other
citizens is threatened, Jack has a difficult decision to face.

An original and imaginative alternative reality. I loved the bravery and cleverness of this curious
young boy. Recommended for 8-12s and especially for those that enjoy building and fixing things
and making things go.… (meer)

I was fortunate to receive this book from a friend who picked it up for me at ALA. I actually begged for it, and she was good enough to indulge me.

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking, "How the heck am I going to review this without spoiling it?" I don't know if I've figured that out yet, so we'll see how this goes. I may have to mark this as a great big spoiler.

I really liked the premise of this book. It's dystopian, as are so many books these days, but it has an angle I've not seen before: the government controls the citizens with music that's been encoded to make them addicts, and forbids anyone to make music of their own. Anthem finds a group to play music with (or they find him), and he realizes that they need to stop the government before they lose any more of their free will. The thought of using music, which is such a joy to so many, as a weapon is chilling, and Trevayne did a great job building a world in which that could happen.

I loved how much Anthem cared for and about his brother and sister, and how he cared for his father, even though there was a tinge of frustration at caring for the dying addict. Anthem knows it's not his father's fault that he's addicted: the government ensures that they have a population of addicts. Anthem also know that he's not going to be around long to care for his siblings if things keep going the way they are. Very good motivation for trying to make a change.

I think I've reached my limit on what I can say without gushing and giving everything away. I will close with saying that I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who likes dystopian stories, music, funky body art, or teenagers trying to change the world.… (meer)

Well, I made it a good few chapters in before deciding to check out Goodreads to see if I was the only who felt meh about it, and wow. Definitely not.

I found it really slow and difficult to get into. They really don't help you with all the futuristic jargon, and a lot of times, you're playing a guessing game just trying to understand what Anthem's even talking about. I did notice a few questionable jumps, and from what I've heard, things start to pick up 2/3rds of the way through, worsen in pacing, and make even less sense.

I do agree that Anthem's sexuality is handled in a really nice "not unrealistically in your face, but still undeniably there" way, and the diversity of sexualities in the book was quite nice.

I'll also have to echo that meh feeling about the characters a few people expressed. I only made it like 26% but even then, it shouldn't take an entire book for you to feel any way about the characters! What's that they say? Good characters can carry a bad plot, but a good plot can't carry bad characters? The idea was interesting once I finally got an idea of it, but the delivery dragged, the characters didn't pull me in, and from what I hear, it doesn't get better.

DNF vnv… (meer)