Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Relic by Heather Terrell
Relic by Heather Terrell
Series: The Books of Eva
Author: Heather Terrell
Page Count: 277
Publisher: Soho Teen
When Eva's twin brother, Eamon, falls to his death just a few months before he is due to participate in The Testing, no one expects Eva to take his place. She's a Maiden, slated for embroidery classes, curtseys, and ultimately a marriage befitting the daughter of a ruler of the Aerie. But Eva insists on honoring her brother by becoming a Testor. After all, she wouldn't be the first Maiden to Test, just the first in 150 years.
Eva knows the Testing is no dance class. Gallant Testors train for their entire lives to search icy wastelands for Relics: artifacts from an era once known as the 21st century, the corrupt Tech-worshipping age that drowned in the Healing. Out in the Boundary lands, Eva draws on the lifetime of training she received in a matter of weeks from Lukas - her servant, a Boundary native, and her closest friend now that Eamon is gone. Maybe even more than that.
But there are threats in The Testing beyond what Lukas could have prepared her for. And no one could have imagined the danger Eva unleashes when she discovers a Relic that shakes the Aerie to its core.
When Eva's twin brother, Eamon, falls to his death just a few months before he is due to participate in The Testing, no one expects Eva to take his place. She's a Maiden, slated for embroidery classes, curtseys, and ultimately a marriage befitting the daughter of a ruler of the Aerie. But Eva insists on honoring her brother by becoming a Testor. After all, she wouldn't be the first Maiden to Test, just the first in 150 years.
Eva knows the Testing is no dance class. Gallant Testors train for their entire lives to search icy wastelands for Relics: artifacts from an era once known as the 21st century, the corrupt Tech-worshipping age that drowned in the Healing. Out in the Boundary lands, Eva draws on the lifetime of training she received in a matter of weeks from Lukas - her servant, a Boundary native, and her closest friend now that Eamon is gone. Maybe even more than that.
But there are threats in The Testing beyond what Lukas could have prepared her for. And no one could have imagined the danger Eva unleashes when she discovers a Relic that shakes the Aerie to its core.
My Thoughts
I had this book on my Goodreads TBR list, so when it showed up in the library of the middle school where I work, I convinced the librarian to let me borrow it before he shelved it and made it available to students. I often do Book Talks with my 8th graders, so I was excited that a book I was looking forward to reading was "officially approved" for middle schoolers.
Ugh. Everything you need to know about this story you can read on the inside front cover. Seriously. That's the entire story right there. Sure, there's some additional details (I mean, obviously, because the book is almost 300 pages long), but that's the meat of the story right there. As I re-read it now, I'm not sure why I was so excited to read it. But I was. And now I want those four hours back.
I had trouble getting into this book, but I persisted anyway. The author tries to do too much world building right away. But she tries to do the world building by dancing around it. She won't come directly out and explain anything, she just gives random details and tells stories and uses foreign words. And about those foreign words. They're everywhere, and they're never defined. So throughout the book there's all these foreign words just sprinkled in there that you can sorta figure out using context clues (that's the language arts teacher in me coming out), but yet you aren't completely sure you're understanding it correctly. So the beginning was dry, the world building is awkward and ineffective...
Then there's the characters. We meet Eamon for the first few pages, then he dies. It's all very mysterious. He was climbing something because he was training for something then someone saw him and said something and then killed him. Then we meet Eva, who is apparently his twin sister, and apparently annoying. Not just to me, but to the other characters. She seems to irritate them as much as she irritated me. Jasper is a turd. He just wants a girl who will sit around and be his pretty Maiden, which is what Eva is supposed to be and was trained to be. Lukas is the best thing in this book. He's from the forbidden Boundary land. He actually has a spine and some character, but Eva's wish-washiness keeps him from being very present or exciting. Basically, I didn't care about any of the characters. I was hoping they would all join Eamon and the story would end.
And the premise of the story. Boys train their entire lives to take place in The Testing to find Relics from olden times (read: our present day) and whoever finds the best one earns a spot of privilege in society. Apparently finding a designer handbag automatically turns you into a really important person. Anyway, boys spend yearsssss training to take part in this. But Eva trains for just a couple weeks and of course is better than everyone else. Oh, and the whole reason for the current society they're living in is because they world was destroyed 150 years ago because people worshipped the great god Apple. As in Apple, the company that makes iPhones and iPads and Macbooks...
I just can't. I'm all for fantasy and science fiction and crazy things happening and dragons and unicorns and witches and demons but Apple as a God? No. Just no. I finished the book because I felt I had to, but there were no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
I tend to like, or at least enjoy, pretty much everything I read. This book was an exception to that. You get 1 star, and my recommendation: DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!
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