Editorial Reviews for Nominees
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Editorial Reviews for Nominees
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Score: 88/100 (8.8 out of 10)
Once upon a time there were two kinds of magic: dark magic and light magic. After a violent struggle with a powerful sorcerer named Maximilian, witches were obligated to divide themselves between one of these types of magic or the other. They were never allowed to overlap for fear of breaking the truce and, worst of all, disturbing the delicate balance between the light and dark, creating another monster like Maximilian. A particular witch named Immilla pledged herself to dark magic and became especially powerful in it. She was also keen enough to discover that her father, a member of the council of witches, was siphoning the powers of other dark witches to empower himself. This enraged and concerned her father so much that he cast a spell on her to fall in love with a mortal named Vladimir. Vladimir was wounded by a wolf and healed with the power of Immilla's blood and subsequently turned into an immortal creature by her father as part of his manipulative ploy. Through the power of her blood magic, Immilla was able to discover the truth about her father's manipulation and also that Vladimir himself had been responsible for the death of the wolf's mate. All of this resulted in Vladimir, a former mortal turned monster. He continued the malicious, malevolent will of Immilla's father and had become both bloodthirsty and power hungry in his own right. A prophecy emerges in the midst of this: “For I saw Vladimir’s other path written clearly in the stars on the night sky. He would meet his doom and burn at the hands of the one marked by the Dragon’s Eye.” Now, if that sounds both very awesome and very convoluted, it is! And as cool, epic, and incredible as that backstory is, it is actually a huge tonal juxtaposition to how this book actually reads and how information is presented. This is really a tale of two very different books: 1. The first half which is more like a teenage/high school drama and 2. The second half, which is more like a power fantasy. If you love Twilight and other books blending romance and fantasy with vampires and werewolves, you may enjoy this book! The Darkest Side of the Moon M.C. Ryder puts you in the shoes of Nadine/Nadia Drexel, seemingly an average high school student who works an unfulfilling and dissatisfying job at a bank. At school, she is frequently a target of the school bully, Greg. And at work, she is frequently micromanaged and written-up for the slightest of errors, such as being a few cents short on her till. Thankfully, she has a good friend named Camille, a somewhat awkward girl who despises healthy foods, to whom she can confide. Their lives are shaken up when an attractive new student, Vinsent Weber (often just called “Vince”), enters the school. It can't be that much of a spoiler to say that Vince is pretty much the Edward Cullen of this book, for better or for worse. He mostly fills the same archetype. You kinda have to know this to progress with and understand the rest of this book because otherwise it comes across like you're watching Bring It On, American Pie, or Not Another Teen Movie. At its core, this is really a romantic fantasy novel, not another teen novel. Vince gains the eye of many girls throughout the school including Camille, but he seems especially drawn to Nadine, whom—as you may have guessed (with her being the main protagonist and all)—has a special destiny linked to the aforementioned prophecy. This really isn't rocket science or a spoiler for anyone who has read a fantasy novel with a prophecy in it. Some of the early interactions between Vince and Nadine range from awkward and creepy to cute and even funny. One especially funny interaction is when Vince tries to use his power of suggestion, which is similar to a Jedi mind trick or that flashing thing from Men in Black, to get Nadine to forget the unsavory aspects and information from their interactions. However, he accidentally spills the beans that his mind trick doesn't work so well when the target has consumed asparagus. So what does Nadine do? She loads up on and over consumes asparagus in an attempt to circumvent Vince's power! This demonstrates both Nadine's cleverness and her stubbornness. She is never one to just go with the flow and to just let things happen, even when they seem to be in everyone's best interest. This also shows that Vince isn't some clairvoyant or infallible being who doesn't make mistakes. He can actually be a clumsy klutz and slips up from time to time, showing that he still has a human side to him. Now, the second half of this book is far different than the first. We want to emphasize that it's almost a 180-degree turn—like night and day. While the first half of the book was rather light, drab, simple, and strangely... “normal”... (well, aside from the appearance of a knife and a vampire or two), the second half is action-packed, violent, and pretty epic in scope. The second half of the book also heavily features new relationships for Nadine/Nadia, chief of which is her relationship with Marc, who is pretty much the Jacob Black of this novel. The relationship that Nadia has with Marc is arguably even more intense and intimate than her relationship with Vince. In fact, you could even argue they have better chemistry—at least from a physical or sensual standpoint. Camille actually takes a backseat during the second half of the book, almost becoming an afterthought. That's a little unfortunate because we really empathized with her, perhaps more so than some of the other characters who get introduced to us. She gets almost completely supplanted in her tritagonist role by Marc, and at one point we're even coaxed by the narration to consider her to be akin to an antagonist or even villain, a sort of backstabber or traitor. It's a bit unfortunate because it really did seem like Camille was a charming Samwise Gamgee-type character. Speaking of other characters, Nadia also encounters and starts working with the werewolves of the novel led by Lamont and joined by Caden and Cameron. That's a whole other can of worms, but in summary: the werewolves still share a blood feud with the vampires, causing added tension between the characters and their fragile alliances. Lamont will do anything and everything to protect his pack and keep them together. Meanwhile, a secondary antagonist emerges in the form of the wolf Caden, a Starscream-like character who seems to want to supplant Lamont as leader and rid the group of all vampire influence including Nadia. Caden is such a huge pain in the butt! He fights with both Cameron and Lamont while constantly threatening Nadia, Marc, and Vince. Just kill him or let him die already! He's not the kind of guy you want to keep around. Just cut the cancer out already. It's weird too because Nadia stands up for him and protects him from Lamont's wrath and judgment at one point even when he's completely ungrateful and still threatens to act out in the future. The villains of this book also range in quality and influence. There are minor annoyances like Greg and Caden, and then there are big-bads like Jomar and Vladimir. Jomar could probably be considered Nadia's arch-nemesis or most direct adversary in this book. He's the one with whom Nadia shares the most personal and direct animosity with similar to Cloud and Sephiroth (as opposed to Cloud and Jenova). Jomar is pretty much the leading, imposing, needlessly-brutal and sadistic creep of the enemies. He's like every character Peter Stormare or Michael Ironside ever played. The last thing we'll say about the characters is that Nadine does become Nadia in the course of this book, and it is jarring! While Nadine could be tough and strong-willed, she wasn't the kill-crazy, bloodthirsty, and often mean character that Nadia is. She keeps saying (or thinking about) how much she wants to hurt and kill people, to spill their blood. Whether they deserve it or not, she definitely becomes a much darker character as Nadia. Nadia also treats Vince noticeably worse than she did when she was Nadine, such as when she is ungrateful when he helps her, rolls her eyes at him, and ignores him. At least a part of Nadine is still alive in there such as when she chooses to spare Caden or when Vince still recognizes that she's a person who stands up for people in need. It's a very colorful cast of characters! And the premise is pretty good, though comparable to something like Twilight. Now, this book has some huge, glaring weaknesses that we couldn't overlook. First of all, it's written in second-person and present-tense. That might sound unique and cool, but it can be jarring to the grand majority of readers who are accustomed to reading in first-person or third-person. It's hard to explain how bothersome this perspective can be, especially in the first hundred or so pages when you're trying to adapt and get used to it. Maybe we should try to describe second-person to you in simple terms: it's when YOU are the character or are taking their immediate perspective. You are told what you're seeing, what you're feeling, and what you're doing as the character. This is going to sound strange, but it's almost like being directed and led. It's like someone forcing you to feel a certain way or do a certain thing. It's kinda... uncomfortable and oppressive. This might work in one of those create-your-own-adventure novels in which you can make your own choices as the character (like flip to page 18 to date Andy, flip to page 43 to punch Nate), but it doesn't work very well in this context. Here are some examples of how the second-person perspective seems uncomfortable and oppressive: “...you are happy for her.” Wait a minute! What if I don't want to be happy for her? What if the characters are making a mistake by allowing this troublesome dad back in the home or I really disagree with the direction this is going? Why am I being forced to be happy when I'm not? “It was one of your pet-peeves” Since when?! Why am I, the reader, being told I have a pet-peeve that I don't have? “It’s hard to admit but you didn’t really doubt him in the first place.” Wait a minute! What if I did doubt him and had reason to doubt him? Why am I being told as a reader that I can't feel the feelings I felt? Why am I being forced to trust this guy's word when I don't want to? Why is the author telling me to feel a feeling that I don't feel? Where is my autonomy as a reader to interpret and decide? Another frustrating aspect of the second-person perspective is that not only does it take away your autonomy as a reader, it also leaves you in the dark about who the heck you are or what character you're supposed to be. Like, we had to get pretty deep into this book to finally figure out: “YOU” are Nadine, later known as Nadia, a 5'6” brown-haired, hazel-eyed high school student who went fishing with your dad, likes Camille, hates your job at the bank, and hates Greg (for good reasons). In the meantime, before you put that all together, you might find yourself unmoored, ungrounded, disoriented, and lost, which is ironic because the plot itself is really not that different a so many other fantasy-romance novels. It's just extra challenging because of this perspective and the way information is presented. It's like being in one of those old first-person shooter games in which you're shooting at enemies you don't know while in a body you're unfamiliar with and being a person you don't know. The last thing we'll say about the second-person perspective is that it kinda reads like a cross between instructions from a D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) dungeon master and discovering clues in a survival-horror game. You know? Like, “You find a red ruby gem. You place it on an altar. You feel tingly.” That might sound cool in concept, but it kinda comes across as unintentionally funny and silly. This book has one other huge weakness: aside from the writing (as we mentioned), the editing leaves a lot to be desired. There are so many typos and grammatical errors in this novel. It really could've used an edit, another round of proofreading, and a rewrite (preferably in first or third person). However, you could argue that this created some unintentionally hilarious passages, which arguably added to the entertainment factor of the book. Here are a few: “You should get to class before you’re late. I’ve got to take care of my massacre.” (“Massacre” is used instead of “mascara”) “...snail's pass” should be “snail's pace." “Do not oversight my hesitation as weakness” should be “do not mistake my hesitation for weakness” “...and approach with cautious” should be “approached with caution” “...not going down without a fighting chance” should be “...not going down without a fight.” “You had forgotten all about him but that same creepy feeling resurfaces in his presences” (“Presence” is plural for some reason) “How many lives had been tortured?” (Lives can't be tortured because lives aren't entities unto themselves and thus can't experience pain. People with lives can be tortured, so can demons, vampires, werewolves, or animals if they have... lives) “...for the meantime” should be “in the meantime.” “...never give up on hope” should be “never give up hope” “They are inferior of your power” should be “They are inferior to your power” “...dominate and powerful” should be “dominant and powerful” The passage that reads “We must all come together if we are to accomplish our shared undertaking. A common goal. One that requires us to work together which we shall” is unintentionally hilarious because it's superfluous, wordy, and redundant. The narrator is basically stating the exact same thing three separate times in three separate ways. You could argue that it's for emphasis, but you could argue that the author was probably buying time and filling space while they were thinking of what to write next. That kinda passage usually doesn't make it through many rounds of edits. There are also some strange, bizarre, and unintentionally funny issues in this book that disrupt the pacing and flow. For example, there's a dining room scene in which Nadine is trying to rally the protagonists to put their differences aside and join together to fight evil. Then, seemingly five minutes later, two of the characters find themselves in a dungeon with one of them being tortured to death and characters whom we hadn't seen in seeming ages (and whom we'd forgotten were even in the book) suddenly there and relevant all of a sudden. It's arguably a powerful and important scene, but its sandwiched in a very strange place with very little build or explanation for how we got all the way from a dining room table to there. Another example is when Nadia is just frolicking along with her new companion, Cameron (the runt of the wolves), and they suddenly witness—and we're not making this up—some random boys randomly tying up a random girl, randomly accusing her of being a witch and randomly wanting to burn her alive. It's just so random! Like, we get that the exposition earlier in the book explained that witches were burned at the stake in the past due to Immilla's dad and stuff, but this just seemed so out of place and out of left field given that this book appeared to be heading a completely different direction. So, this scene just seemed so out of place and unneeded. It's also weird that Nadia basically lets these boys off easy after they just showed homicidal, sadistic, and sociopathic tendencies in having just tried to burn an innocent person to death! Like, if you just watched Ted Bundy kill someone, then apprehended him, would you then turn him loose and say, “You be good from now on!” Like, there's grace and mercy, and there's pure stupidity and a lack of common sense. And then, not ten minutes later, we suddenly find out that 16 of the wolves have been captured by another villain named Bryce, they're starving and near death and we have to save them! Where did this all come from? It's like the author wanted to write like 15 different short stories but they all needed to be in one narrative. This kind of side-questing is cool for video games and D&D, but it doesn't really work when you're trying to tell a clear and coherent story. However, this book does have its bright spots outside of the colorful characters. There are passages like: “The dagger words” “He’s beautifully broken but still strong. Sometimes when you have nothing else left, strong is all you have.” While a work-in-progress in terms of writing, this book features a complex & compelling lore, some great romantic pairings, as well as one of the best characters of the contest: Nadine Drexel. Check it out on Amazon!
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