This
dark and thrilling adventure, with an unforgettable heroine, will captivate
fans of steampunk, fantasy, and romance. On her 18th birthday, Lena Mattacascar
decides to search for her father, who disappeared into the northern wilderness
of Scree when Lena was young. Scree is inhabited by Peculiars, people whose
unusual characteristics make them unacceptable to modern society. Lena wonders
if her father is the source of her own extraordinary characteristics and if
she, too, is Peculiar. On the train she meets a young librarian, Jimson
Quiggley, who is traveling to a town on the edge of Scree to work in the home
and library of the inventor Mr. Beasley. The train is stopped by men being
chased by the handsome young marshal Thomas Saltre. When Saltre learns who
Lena’s father is, he convinces her to spy on Mr. Beasley and the strange folk
who disappear into his home, Zephyr House. A daring escape in an aerocopter
leads Lena into the wilds of Scree to confront her deepest fears.
I had really high hopes for ‘The Peculiars’ – everything
about it appealed to me, from the blurb and the cover to the reviews and
snippets of conversation I kept hearing about it. And for the most part it
lived up to my expectations, but there were a few things that fell short and
knocked it down from five stars to four.
The concept was fantastic and for the most part the execution
was as well, what let it down was the inability to decide on one story line to
take the characters through. It felt like there were two stories trying to be
told. Ideally that would have been split into two books, the first involving
Lena and her attempts to discover the secrets at Zephyr House, and the second
the escape through Scree. But because both were crammed into one book neither
were given the attention they deserved and as a result the book was an odd
jumble of the two and never really took off.
I loved the concept, the world building was really good and I
could have quite happily read a book twice its length to explore even more of
the world. It’s was beautifully constructed but I was a little baffled as to
why it was labelled as a steampunk book, as aside from a couple of wacky
machines and a dirigible there is absolutely nothing that would tie it to
steampunk, no development and construction that affects the whole world with
these leaps forward in technology, so I kind of felt a little let down and
mislead by that. However apart from that I thought the world building was great.
The narrative was a little uneven, there were some flashbacks
towards the start of the novel that suddenly disappear a few chapters in with
little to no reasoning behind them. It felt a little jagged and I was left
feeling like they had just been shoved in to provide some information for the
reader that they otherwise wouldn’t have had, there was no reason or
development of these to make them a solid part of the narrative.
I was also a little concerned by some of the ideals and
beliefs that Lena holds to. It was a great coming of age story but I felt that
some aspects were handled a little indelicately. For example Lena is terrified
because she thinks that being a Peculiar means she’ll have no soul, she’ll be
unable to help the terrible things she’ll inevitably do, and Peculiar’s are
treated as second class citizens. They’re rounded up and sent off to the mines,
and they aren’t allowed to own property are just a couple of examples of how
this is portrayed. And most are desperate to remove the things that make them peculiar, to stop the abnormalities and fit in as 'normal' people. However at the end of the novel Lena comes to accept her peculiarities
not because it makes her strong and equal, but because they make her special.
She also signs over her property, her life and her way of earning a living to a
man (who yes seems quite nice sure) because she is a woman, a peculiar and is
therefore not human or worthy enough to take control of her life, even out in
the wilds of Scree where no-one would really know and/or care, and in doing
this she is praised by those around her. She becomes completely dependent on
this man to look after her, provide for her and not kick her out into the wilds
of Scree – this place that should be rights be hers. It just seemed a little
too close to the line. Lena is forward thinking and strong for a lot of the
novel and it really felt like this undermined her. It was also the way that
women are portrayed as weaker and subservient to the male characters, and all
of the male characters, including Jimson are arrogant, cocky and completely
despicable at some points. It left me with a bit of a nasty taste in my mouth
when I finished, which is a sham given how well everything started out.
It took a very long time to really pick up speed and get
going, which wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if the two storylines
weren’t battling for supremacy in the second half of the book. All in all there
were some great ideas and some lovely writing and concepts, but a lot of it
ended up being obscured by some slightly twisted ideals and portrayals and a
plot that was so tangled around itself that it never really took off.
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