Scan barcode
A review by ireadthebooks
Flame of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier
3.0
1. Maeve should have been likeable, but I found her boring.
The beginning of “Flame of Sevenwaters” was excruciatingly slow, but the end somewhat made up for it. The beginning is a study in how to write a character who is pathetic and also stubbornly strong, who alternately irritates and inspires the reader. On the one hand, Maeve isn’t content to let her useless hands define her. After the injury she sustained in one of the previous books, she went to live with Bran and Liadan. She’s learned to do things in her own way, to stand up for herself, and to know her limitations and accept them. But there are other times when she’s incredibly frustrating to read. She laments about being a claw handed monster and no man will ever love her. She returns to Sevenwaters and immediately starts to criticize the way her parents are raising her little brother, despite not having been there for ten years. She tells her brother that she has learned not to be scared of fire (which was part of her accident), because it’s required for life, but later on, she’ll cower or act afraid of fire. If she’d only flinched or been uncomfortable, I might have believed her, but because she was only hiding her fear, I didn’t respect her courage as much. For 200 pages, we get Maeve feeling awkward, being uncomfortable in her old home where no one knows how to cope with her disfigurement, and an awful lot of Maeve cooing over various animals. There’s a skittish horse to which Maeve says “kind hands and quiet” over and over and over again. Then she adopts two stray dogs and does the same. I would’ve been infinitely more satisfied if the author had just said “and Maeve uttered nonsense to them in a peaceful tone” and didn’t beat us over the head with how soothing she could be.
2. Flame of Sevenwaters is just SLOW.
It takes almost halfway through the book for the plot to actually get going, namely that her little brother Finbar is visiting and gets lost while chasing after the aforementioned skittish horse, and since her brother has been in danger for his whole life, this is a big deal. View Spoiler » So Maeve goes tearing off into the forest with her dogs and gets lost, and nothing really happens for two days but for some reason, we follow her throughout those two days in yet more excruciating detail. It was at this point, around 62% where I thought about DNFing. If “Flame of Sevenwaters” had been a library book, I would’ve, but I paid $6 for it and felt compelled to finish it out. It’s hard to be crazy.
3. Thankfully, the last 30% of the book was where it finally picked up and made the other 70% somewhat bearable.
Don’t get me wrong: the book up until that point was set up, then putting Maeve into position for the climax , and then Marillier finally got on with it. Her method of resolving the plot, tying up all the loose ends, and surprising us with some plot twists was solid and effective. I ended the book thinking “okay, that was a good story.”
In the End:
The whole book just felt like Marillier had signed another Sevenwaters trilogy and had enough of Sorcha’s granddaughters to write more books, but then she ran out of story, so she just stretched the set up for this one as far as humanly possible. I’m not sure there was a single moment of Maeve’s journey that we didn’t follow in detail. Ultimately, the dragging pace and the total lack of plot throughout 70% of the book made Flame of Sevenwaters a pretty boring read.
This review for "Flame of Sevenwaters" first appeared on ReadingbyStarlight.com.
The beginning of “Flame of Sevenwaters” was excruciatingly slow, but the end somewhat made up for it. The beginning is a study in how to write a character who is pathetic and also stubbornly strong, who alternately irritates and inspires the reader. On the one hand, Maeve isn’t content to let her useless hands define her. After the injury she sustained in one of the previous books, she went to live with Bran and Liadan. She’s learned to do things in her own way, to stand up for herself, and to know her limitations and accept them. But there are other times when she’s incredibly frustrating to read. She laments about being a claw handed monster and no man will ever love her. She returns to Sevenwaters and immediately starts to criticize the way her parents are raising her little brother, despite not having been there for ten years. She tells her brother that she has learned not to be scared of fire (which was part of her accident), because it’s required for life, but later on, she’ll cower or act afraid of fire. If she’d only flinched or been uncomfortable, I might have believed her, but because she was only hiding her fear, I didn’t respect her courage as much. For 200 pages, we get Maeve feeling awkward, being uncomfortable in her old home where no one knows how to cope with her disfigurement, and an awful lot of Maeve cooing over various animals. There’s a skittish horse to which Maeve says “kind hands and quiet” over and over and over again. Then she adopts two stray dogs and does the same. I would’ve been infinitely more satisfied if the author had just said “and Maeve uttered nonsense to them in a peaceful tone” and didn’t beat us over the head with how soothing she could be.
2. Flame of Sevenwaters is just SLOW.
It takes almost halfway through the book for the plot to actually get going, namely that her little brother Finbar is visiting and gets lost while chasing after the aforementioned skittish horse, and since her brother has been in danger for his whole life, this is a big deal. View Spoiler » So Maeve goes tearing off into the forest with her dogs and gets lost, and nothing really happens for two days but for some reason, we follow her throughout those two days in yet more excruciating detail. It was at this point, around 62% where I thought about DNFing. If “Flame of Sevenwaters” had been a library book, I would’ve, but I paid $6 for it and felt compelled to finish it out. It’s hard to be crazy.
3. Thankfully, the last 30% of the book was where it finally picked up and made the other 70% somewhat bearable.
Don’t get me wrong: the book up until that point was set up, then putting Maeve into position for the climax , and then Marillier finally got on with it. Her method of resolving the plot, tying up all the loose ends, and surprising us with some plot twists was solid and effective. I ended the book thinking “okay, that was a good story.”
Spoiler
I’m still pretty eked out by the fact that her dogs turned into the missing sons of the neighboring land owner, and she and her favorite of the pair immediately decided they were in love and getting married. Like okay … but he was a dog. Sure, he’s not now, but he also might have a totally different personality as a person with human thoughts, and you’re not even going to see how the relationship goes before deciding to marry him as soon as possible? I know I’m not a dog person, but my doubts are justified here, okay?In the End:
The whole book just felt like Marillier had signed another Sevenwaters trilogy and had enough of Sorcha’s granddaughters to write more books, but then she ran out of story, so she just stretched the set up for this one as far as humanly possible. I’m not sure there was a single moment of Maeve’s journey that we didn’t follow in detail. Ultimately, the dragging pace and the total lack of plot throughout 70% of the book made Flame of Sevenwaters a pretty boring read.
This review for "Flame of Sevenwaters" first appeared on ReadingbyStarlight.com.