Bad week for reading II

After my bad romance experience, I decided to pull out one of my fantasy books. This was a new released that grabbed me due to it's excellent cover graphics.

Green
By Jay Lake

Write up:

She was born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, she does not remember her own name—her earliest clear memory is of the day her father sold her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree, where she was taught the ways of a courtesan…and the skills of an assassin…she was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke’s collection of beauties.

She calls herself Green.

The world she inhabits is one of political power and magic, where Gods meddle in the affairs of mortals. At the center of it is the immortal Duke’s city of Copper Downs, which controls all the trade on the Storm Sea. Green has made many enemies, and some secret friends, and she has become a very dangerous woman indeed.

Acclaimed author Jay Lake has created a remarkable character in Green, and evokes a remarkable world in this novel. Green and her struggle to survive and find her own past will live in the reader’s mind for a long time after closing the book.

What I can say about this book is that it had it's moments. There were times in the book where I was very engaged and interested, but the problem I had was similar with the previous romance: I did not connect enough with the characters.

First, I found Green too "adult" for her age at the start of the book, and really most of the book, when she is bought and set up in the Pomegranate Court. She did not come across as realistic. I did enjoy hearing about her training to be a consort and the secret training she got from her dancing mistress...but I thought many of those parts were very slow to begin with. When the action finally happened..it was so sudden and not fully explained in my opinion, that it just did not grab me. I felt no immediate emotion about it...which is the main issue of the book. It lacked a certain kind of emotion.

This was further demonstrated in the second chapter of her life and training when Green goes back to her homeland to search for her family. Her homecoming and the feelings there I thought were handled well...but the subsequent training at the hands of the street kids and her time at the Temple learning to be an assassin had that same kind of slow, dry, lack of emotional connection for me. Even her adventures exploring her sexuality seemed kind of rushed and lacked connection. I guess one can say that it is Green, due to her life that lacks that connection and I'm reading that in the book...but I felt it was more of a writing issues than a character issues. It could have been so much better given the premise.

I also did not connect very well with many of the secondary characters either. Many of them were not given sufficient explanation for their actions, and the world it self left many questions unexplained.

So in this case..I should not have judged a book by it's cover. Final Grade C