(Originally reviewed June 8th 2014)
Well… that was disappointing.
I must admit that at first I was kind of turned off by the Goodreads blurb. It just seemed like two completely different ideas mashed together. Guy is invisible, girl can see said invisible guy, and then… magic and curses and … stuff.
However, the premise of a permanently invisible character was one that was undeniably intriguing and made a nice change from the whole ‘dystopic love triangle’ thing. I was also a massive fan of Levithan’s novel Every Day and assumed it would be something in a similarly retrospective and thoughtful domain. And for the first few pages, it was like that. Then Josie ‘Elizabeth’ entered the picture.
Okay, so before this review deteriorates into a major rant, I’ll point out a few of the things that I actually liked about the book, as few in number as they are.
Firstly, as I said before, the initial premise is interesting. I don’t think Levithan and Cremer took it nearly as far as they could have, but the basic elements are all there. I particularly liked how Steven had to concentrate incredibly hard to touch anything or anyone, something that everyone takes for granted. It struck me how isolated someone like Steven would feel, living in a world where no-one knows he exists, unable to reach out to anyone, unable to even commit suicide for fear of no-one ever being able to see his corpse. It’s a grim predicament, one that I maybe wouldn’t have considered before reading the book. Maybe if the plot had been more reflective and perhaps more like ‘Every Day’ in its tone, I might have gotten more enjoyment out of it.
There were also elements of the magical aspect that I liked. Some of the curses depicted were genuinely creepy, and it was kind of interesting to see how New York would react to events of this magnitude taking place. I also thought Millie and Saul were adorable together. As separate characters they were kind of bland, but the romance between them (at least, I’m assuming they were romantically linked) was very subtle and as a result something I found very cute.
Other than that, I’m afraid I was very underwhelmed, mainly for the following reasons:
1. The Writing
Although things started off well with Levithan’s reflective tone, on the whole I found that the prose, particularly on Cremer’s side, was weak and at times quite awkwardly written. A lot of the actions I found to be very repetitive (the reoccurring descriptions of how Millie looks younger when she smiles was particularly grating) and ultimately there was a lot of filler that could have been edited out. Furthermore, the two voices were often very difficult to distinguish and, as I remarked earlier on in the review, I didn’t think the two concepts blended together particularly well. A story about the trials and tribulations of an invisible boy and his growing relationship with the one girl that can see him would have made for an interesting story. A story about curses and magical terrorism would have also made for an interesting story. But when mashed together, I just didn’t think that they really worked.
2. The Plot
There are so many ways that this story could have gone, so many directions that Levithan and Cremer could have taken. Yet what they choose to do with the plot is actually very formulaic. There’s your typical under-developed ‘instalove’, another story about Josie ‘Elizabeth’ being a chosen one, and a bad guy that is evil and unhinged because… well, because he is evil and unhinged. Personally, I would have liked the invisibility angle to have been developed a little bit more, for the characters to have taken their time to get to know one another and to have formed a genuine bond and for the book to have fully embraced the philosophical and spiritual essence that made Every Day such a great read. But maybe that would be wishful thinking on my part.
3. Characterisation
My reactions to Levithan and Cremer’s characters ranged from indifference to minor dislike. For the most part, the characters didn’t leave much of an impact upon me. Steven himself was very boring for someone that has been invisible for his entire life. Now I’m no psychologist, but wouldn’t he have been a bit less… socialised than he was in the novel? Even with the best mother in the world, without any meaningful interaction with other people I can imagine that someone like Steven would be kind of quirky to say the least. I’m sure that if I was invisible myself that a) I would be eternally naked. After all, what’s the point in getting dressed if no-one can see what you’re wearing? And b) I would go out of my way to fuck with people. If I had never had any meaningful communication with a human being other than my mother and father, why would I care about causing any trouble? Yet when he meets Josie ‘Elizabeth’, literally the first person who has ever seen him, he seems to adapt very quickly and thus the transition was a little too smooth for my liking.
Josie ‘Elizabeth’ also really annoyed me. It seemed as though Cremer did everything in her power to make her as quirky and, like, totally relatable as possible, and it just came across as very fake. If I’m seriously to believe that the girl on the cover is Josie‘Elizabeth’, then it seems that Cremer expects us to relate to this nerdy, pretty, intelligent, artistic, kind, ‘funny’ (emphasis on the inverted commas) and gifted magical prodigy. Unfortunately, I didn’t particularly connect with her at all. Although she at least has an ambition along with an obligatory tragic back story, which is more than I can say for Bella Swan, it all seemed tacked on and as a result slightly superficial.
The other characters… well, they were okay , I guess. You had your typical bad guy, your typical wise old lady, your typical tough brawny guy and your typical gay guy thrown in for a bit of social commentary . Although having said that, I think Laurie was the character I came closest to actually rooting for, but even then there seemed to be a very fine line between a relatable and sympathetic character and simply a Gary Stu with an unfortunate back story . OK, forget I said all that. I’ve thought long and hard about Laurie, and I’ve come to the decision that he’s not a Gary Stu with an unfortunate back story. Hell, why wasn’t Laurie the main character? He’s a hell of a lot more interesting than Josie Elizabeth whatever her flipping name is.
I don’t know, maybe I’m looking too much into this review. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh. Yes, there were aspects that I liked and as YA novels go it was by no means that worst that I’ve ever read. However, for a novel with such a unique premise to be so dull and unmemorable is disappointing to say the least. I will not be re-reading this book any time soon and, to be honest, I wish it would just disappear.
YA ATROCITIES 