Escape the Rooms by Stephen Mangan

The last thing Jack expected when he bungee-jumped at the fairground was to end up in a maze of underground rooms...Alongiside, a mysterious girl called Cally he must find the key to unlock each room and find his way home.

At the beginning when I first started reading the story I could "hear" Stephen Mangan's voice in the text. Just some of the phrasing and I think because his voice and tone are so individual that came across in the writing. The beginning of the story certainly felt stronger to me - when (as a reader) you're not really sure what's going on and everything's just a little not right.

Also my favourite funny bit is on page 28 - when they're describing Wanda's teeth which made me laugh out loud. I think at this point I had quite high hopes for where we might be going.

I loved the character of Cally who was so angry and snarky :- 

"I can be smart AND angry,"

I liked the overall theme of dealing with one room at a time and looking for answers and how you can feel like you keep coming back to the same place.

But there was more that I didn't like or just didn't work for me as a reader. Although the beginning was strong I don't think the idea of the rooms could hold up the story -  I found it became repetitive - even the strangest and weirdest thing can become boring when it keeps happening on a loop. 

I didn't like the book having no chapters - I like having a fixed place to stop. I'm presuming this was a thematic choice but for me it ended up adding to the interminable feel.

I wasn't keen on the illustrations.

There's a fair amount of gross-out humour which I think some kids will love and it does tip towards horror in a couple of places which I thought was written well. Horror and humour have always worked well together. Nothing too scary but just a little bit of fear for when Jack and Cally leave the path.

The book deals with fear, loss, grief and bereavement in a way that sometimes felt quite sensitive but at times the message also felt a little heavy-handed - Cally is angry, Jack is apathetic. As the whole book is essentially about fear, loss, grief and bereavement it felt like the message was being continually hammered home.

Do the rooms only choose bereaved children who aren't coping well with loss? I feel like it's been marketed more as an adventure fantasy because that's popular. Whereas perhaps, it's closer to the horror side of the fantasy genre. The rooms are coming to get you if you aren't able to cope in either a way or amount of time that's deemed socially acceptable.

I laughed in a couple of places but overall (the further I got into the story) found this a struggle to read as it wasn't holding my interest and in the end (like Jack and Cally) I just wanted to get through the rooms as quickly as possible so it could be over.

(I received a free copy of this book to review).

Map's Edge - David Hair

I feel like whoever wrote the blurb for this story should get some kind of industry award for making it sound much more exciting than it is.

"Soldier, sorcerer and exiled nobleman Raythe Vyre has run out of places to hide...Now he's found a chance of redemption for himself...a map showing a hitherto unknown place that's rich in istariol, the rare mineral that fuels sorcery. Mining it will need people, but luckily there are plenty of outcasts, ne'er-do-wells and loners desperate enough to brave haunted roads through the ruins of an ancient, long-dead civilisation, to seek wealth and freedom."

It sounds like it's going to be a rollicking read,fast paced and exciting but that's not really what you get.

There are parts of it that are gripping, the magic system is interesting though not unique and the female character Kemara has a story that I want to keep reading. Unfortunately it's also incredibly exposition heavy (especially in the beginning), the pace is far too slow not helped by overlong chapters and familiar fantasy situations kept cropping up.

Positives. On the whole the characters are well written, though I found the protagonist Raythe (ex-nobleman and sorcerer) to be one of the least interesting, however, he is the glue holding everything together. Kemara (the healer or is she?), for me, is the most interesting character and the one that kept me reading. I always wanted to know more about her.

The second half of the book is a better read than the first half. There is much more actually happening, towards the end perhaps too much and characters are actually doing things rather than talking about doing things.

The story does slowly pull you in, the quest aspect becomes more interesting and the behaviour of the various groups within the band of travellers increases the intrigue as they all decide whether to put their own self-interest first or help the others. Though the fluidity of this change among some of the characters became somewhat repetitive.

Negatives. There are lots of characters and no character list. In the first chapter I knew I was going to struggle with who was who and it doesn't improve as the story goes on and more and more characters are introduced. In the end I decide to keep track of the characters who interest me and treat the others as background because there are too many for me to remember.

The first half of the book is slow. Not helped by the length of the chapters, for example chapter 4 starts on page 70 and finishes on page 126. As someone who reads a chapter a night before going to sleep I found myself dropping off somewhere around page 100 still nowhere near the end of the chapter. It's also exposition heavy and is not subtle about it. (I may have mentioned that already).

It felt like the story took a while to find it's own identity and if you read a lot of fantasy / watch fantasy television you may find it somewhat derivative. Example at the start there's a bit where I was thinking, this feels a little bit like the Mines of Moria (Lord of the Rings) I bet I can guess what's going to happen next.

Later on a character says "You know nothing" to another character and if you've watched Game of Thrones you're automatically adding "Jon Snow" to the end of that sentence.

Overall - it's a bit of a mixed bag, maybe worth checking out if you're looking for a new fantasy read but I won't be pursuing the series any further.