Django Wexler

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Dark Lord Davi series. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: I was really, really looking forward to reading this. A snarky, dark, humorous fantasy about switching from the heroic side (that always looses) to the winning dark side! It features a woman displaced from the modern world and stuck in a time loop...it sounded fantastic. I ended up stopping this at 30% of the way it because this book has some major issues.

Okay first for what I liked. I enjoyed the snarky heroine, the slap dash violent action, and the idea. I also liked some of the world elements; like the ability of the creatures to eat magical crystals that become a part of them and the classic fantasy world races.

Now for the issues...and there are quite a few of them. Our heroine, Dani, is like a 2D sketch of what a man thinks a woman in this situation would be like. She has no dimension or character besides having survived a lot and wanted to have sex with everything. She can be summed up as willing to die...a lot...and horny...that's pretty much it. I find it hard to believe that a woman who has the forethought to find poison to carry on her so that she can kill herself before she is raped and tortured to death (again), is cool with having tons of unprotected sex with a variety of creatures that could end up with her pregnant. It's just a lack of depth and thought that is inconsistent throughout.

Dani also likes to make a lot of humorous cultural references which normally I would find entertaining. Except that she makes a lot of them, too many, and it is jarring in the context of the story. And...she has been being reincarnated in this time loop for literally thousands of years and has admitted she can't remember where she came from or her past. I just could not see past this...how does she know all these cultural references if she doesn't remember the culture she came from? It's a huge flaw in the story.

Lastly I was incredibly annoyed at all of the footnotes. There are a lot of footnotes in each chapter. If you are reading on ebook you have to click on the link, read it, and then go back to the story. It is incredibly jarring. Some of the footnotes are mildly helpful but most are just empty snarky comments that weren't worth either the time to click and read on them, or getting jarred out of the current story for.

I got so incredibly annoyed with this story that I couldn't take it anymore and put it aside. I am sad because I think this had potential. Get rid of at least some of the cultural references and those pesky footnotes and explain how Dani has the background for all these cultural contact points and that would be a start in making this more readable. Actually make Dani a character with some depth to help readers engage with her and that would make this excellent.

My Summary (2/5): Overall this didn't work for me. The story is just too flawed and the characters are 2D characterizations of typical character tropes. This is a neat idea and I think with some work and filling out of the characters this could be a really well done story. I don't plan on reading any of Wexler's future books, this style just isn't my thing and not enough attention was spent on making the story seem plausible.… (meer)

Its fair to say that I went into this book with higher than normal expectations. I really enjoyed Wexler's fantasy [b:The Thousand Names|15810910|The Thousand Names (The Shadow Campaigns, #1)|Django Wexler|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1355441268s/15810910.jpg|21536059] and when I heard about this--Readers are Magic!--how could I say no? This is everything I ever wanted as a child to happen to me (well except the deceased parents part). I've been saying for years that reading is magical and this book pretty much just validated every single one of those statements.

That its a middle grade didn't register with me. As I was reading I didn't think of this as a middle grade, I didn't think of Alice's age at all really unless someone made comment about it. Since this is set almost a century ago its very easy to overlook a lot of the liberties and restrictions Alice has as being part of that time.

Admittedly this was a bit more by the numbers then THE THOUSAND NAMES was. There isn't a whole lot of deeper motivation then what is shown. Alice is very upfront about her priorities, Geryon is likewise upfront about his main priorities (whether or not some of his other interests are as important are up for interpretation), Ashes doesn't really mince words (he's half-cat after all) and Issac is just kind of like 'gah! whatever!' as things get tossed at him. So you wind up with a book that follows faithfully from Point A to B to C, that as an adult I can see how one leads into the other. If I was reading at the intended age level? I believe it would be more mysterious to me and thus more engrossing.

As it stood what kept me reading was how Wexler uses the Reader magic. Lovers of [b:The Neverending Story|27712|The Neverending Story|Michael Ende|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327871159s/27712.jpg|1122661] or [b:Inkheart|28194|Inkheart (Inkworld, #1)|Cornelia Funke|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1370972877s/28194.jpg|2628323] will certainly feel this is familiar. As a "Reader" Alice (and Geryon and Issac) are able to make what they read reality. Sometimes this means entering a book. Sometimes this means trapping awful creepies in books. And sometimes it means speaking it into existence. To leave a book the "Reader" has to basically become the hero (or heroine) of the novel or if they're lucky another Reader can read them out. Guess which happens more often?

Since I read an uncorrected proof edition many of the illustrations that are in the final copy were missing from mine, but those that were in the book served to really help give imagination to the book. Such as the image of the fairy which begins Alice's journey into the magical. Wexler's description is rather creepy sounding...and the image is just downright cringe inducing. Definitely not what a fairy looks like from what I read as a child.

The good news is I think this will appeal to both girls and boys. There's something for both in here, as well as a whole lot of snarky good humor (I admit Ashes may have been my favorite character). Entertaining and magical, yep that pretty much sums this book up!… (meer)