Michelle Sea

It's funny how one's maturity influences what is a "great read" at a young age because now, after re-reading, my reaction is "What was I thinking? This is bloated, slow, overwrought, sometimes nonsensical with too many loose ends or pat endings...some serious editing would've improved it immensely." IMO much of the writing was permission to indulge whomever was assigned the next chapter: go nuts, throw whatever word-salad you want on the page...esoteric words, big words, use as many as you want, spice it up with random references or thoughts or background meant to shock or be provocative. I found this not compelling, but annoying. And, I was mostly bored to tears reading this as an adult, yet I maintained - I need to try & figure out what I'd loved upon first read... And, I'd spent good money on this book at the airport, so I wanted to justify the expense--just not at the expense of my time! So about a third of the way, I decided to breeze through (if one can "breeze through" 900+ pages) - by concentrating on the dialogue and skimming the rest. I don't think my experience suffered as a result: there was just so much wasted space, enhancing mise en scene for the reader, but I felt it did not advance the story. My brain was spending too much time conjuring up what was described, with my emotions left on the sidelines. I don't think all the bugs & worms & snake-like trees & monsters & animated dead people even made sense in the book, when they were located in America; there was no explanation for "how" these things came to be or got here or who conjured them - it was just A Given. And by the end, it was so much work to try & "see" the flipping back & forth (of the characters, in the story). This made me have to do my own flipping back & forth; during the last 100 pages, I was honestly confused about "Where is Jack now?? Is he Jack or is he Jason?? Is he a twinner or is he a one-er??" I had to go back alot & re-read to figure out the plotline. Really disappointing, this time around. I wish I could've recaptured the feeling I'd had as a young adult, like - that was a GREAT BOOK. But honestly, it's just not. And upon reflection, the biggest thing that sticks out to me is that "title as an indicator" did not resonate after the first read...I had completely forgotten what THE TALISMAN turned out to be. No clue; I didn't remember its shape, size, color, floating & shifting properties. And that's not a ringing endorsement, if one can't even remember the thing (McGuffin?!) that a main character pursued. And now I would have liked to know: What happened in the Territories after Jack took the Talisman? If people flipping over caused electric shock, natural disasters, accidents, etc.--might not the Talisman's leaving the Territories have caused some rip to the space/time continuum so that nobody could flip over, either direction, ever again? I also would've liked to know how the Talisman got imprisoned in the first place. And what was its origin? Who gave the Five Knights the job of guarding it? Again, too many loose ends with no answers. I'm really bummed that this was so disappointing, after a second read, and now my book will be given to Goodwill in hopes that someone else will enjoy it more than I did.