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che_gilsonOkay, something aside from dolls! OMG! Bet you forgot I had it in me.
I just finished reading The Water Mirror by Kai Meyer, a book I've been looking for for a year and a half or so. I saw it in the bookstore and read the jacket- which was fantastic! But din't take down the authors name or the title! When I went back the book was gone! I've been searching for it ever since. No other book store had it and no one knew what I was talking about. The book jacket said it was about an alternate Venice where mermaids lived in the canal and that was ALL I could rmember from the whole description. Not much to go on. Even searching Venice+mermaids on Amazon yeilded nothing. Then 2 weeks ago, on a whim I decided to go the library when I stepped out of the bank- my bank is right next to the library. I was looking at the new arrivals in fantasy and then decided- again on a whim to se if they had anything in YA that looked good. Lo and behold! There it was! The forgotten book! I recognized it from the spine! And when I pulled it off the shelf- it was indeed the book I'd been loking for. I promptly checked it out and just finished reading it.
So, for a year and a half now, I've been building this book up in my mind. Obsessed with it. Mermaids in the canals of an alternate Venice! Although the mermaids didn't have much to do with the plot- which the jacket synopsis did make clear- so I wan't disappointed in that regard. The question was- did it live up to what I'd been imagining all this time. The answer is no. It's a good book, don't get me wrong, just not as good as I thought it should be. It had lots of interesting magic, and big ideas, but the execution was a little bland. There wasn't a great deal of character developement and the plot moved almost too quickly in some parts, and very slowly in the beginning. The language was also clumsey- the wording a much more old fashioned arrangement than normal. The problem is it is also translated from German so I don't know if the prose style was actually the author's or the translator's. There are two more books in the series and I'd like to read them, but I don't think I want ot own this series. I'm rather saddened by that. I feel like I should like it more than I do. I put them on my Amazon wish list anyway. It might be nice to have cheap used copies :) And the series may get even better. Like I said- it's still a good book! But not as well executed as I thought it would be. I recommend checking The Water Mirror out from the library before buying a copy, just to see if you like it or not.
I just finished reading The Water Mirror by Kai Meyer, a book I've been looking for for a year and a half or so. I saw it in the bookstore and read the jacket- which was fantastic! But din't take down the authors name or the title! When I went back the book was gone! I've been searching for it ever since. No other book store had it and no one knew what I was talking about. The book jacket said it was about an alternate Venice where mermaids lived in the canal and that was ALL I could rmember from the whole description. Not much to go on. Even searching Venice+mermaids on Amazon yeilded nothing. Then 2 weeks ago, on a whim I decided to go the library when I stepped out of the bank- my bank is right next to the library. I was looking at the new arrivals in fantasy and then decided- again on a whim to se if they had anything in YA that looked good. Lo and behold! There it was! The forgotten book! I recognized it from the spine! And when I pulled it off the shelf- it was indeed the book I'd been loking for. I promptly checked it out and just finished reading it.
So, for a year and a half now, I've been building this book up in my mind. Obsessed with it. Mermaids in the canals of an alternate Venice! Although the mermaids didn't have much to do with the plot- which the jacket synopsis did make clear- so I wan't disappointed in that regard. The question was- did it live up to what I'd been imagining all this time. The answer is no. It's a good book, don't get me wrong, just not as good as I thought it should be. It had lots of interesting magic, and big ideas, but the execution was a little bland. There wasn't a great deal of character developement and the plot moved almost too quickly in some parts, and very slowly in the beginning. The language was also clumsey- the wording a much more old fashioned arrangement than normal. The problem is it is also translated from German so I don't know if the prose style was actually the author's or the translator's. There are two more books in the series and I'd like to read them, but I don't think I want ot own this series. I'm rather saddened by that. I feel like I should like it more than I do. I put them on my Amazon wish list anyway. It might be nice to have cheap used copies :) And the series may get even better. Like I said- it's still a good book! But not as well executed as I thought it would be. I recommend checking The Water Mirror out from the library before buying a copy, just to see if you like it or not.
