Mystic City

I am trying to be less of a book snob, so this week I read debut author Theo Lawrence's new book, Mystic City.

       

     

   

The cover is really pretty. That's part of the reason why I chose it.

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "Aria Rose, youngest scion of one of Mystic City's two ruling rival families, finds herself betrothed to Thomas Foster, the son of her parents' sworn enemies. The union of the two will end the generations-long political feud—and unite all those living in the Aeries, the privileged upper reaches of the city, against the banished mystics who dwell below in the Depths. But Aria doesn't remember falling in love with Thomas; in fact, she wakes one day with huge gaps in her memory. And she can't conceive why her parents would have agreed to unite with the Fosters in the first place. Only when Aria meets Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic from the Depths, does she start to have glimmers of recollection—and to understand that he holds the key to unlocking her past. The choices she makes can save or doom the city—including herself"

 

Due to the overwhelming romance theme in the blurb, I knew this was the type of book I would usually try to avoid. But I thought the same thing about The Pledge, and ended up really liking it. So I decided to give this book I try.

I think the main problem in this book is the difference between planning and execution. Lawrence obviously had a really creative and beautiful idea for a story, but the portrayal of his ideas is where all that beauty and creativity was lost. A lot of the writing was corny, the characters were unrealistic and annoying, and the plot was extremely predictable. However, there were some very solid parts to the story, so I think it's only fair to separate the good from the bad.

 The Good: The idea behind Mystic City is incredibly imaginative. There are magic-workers (dubbed Mystics) living in some of the larger cities in America, Manhattan included. Years ago, a bomb made of mystic energy was used to blow up a building in an event called the Conflagration. The mystics were blamed, and now their powers are illegal. Twice a year, the government demands they have their powers drained, and then their drained magic is used to fuel the city. One of the interesting things about the book is that Lawrence created an entire history between mystics and humans, and I think he did so accurately. The oppression of the mystics seems like something that could really happen if we ever found magic people living in our society. More importantly, it adds to the world building in a way to make it more believable. The magic in the book is really cool, and has a cinematic like quality (this book would translate really well to film) Also, I love the idea of people living exclusively in skyscrapers. In fact, there's one scene where Aria sees grass for the first time in her life.

 The Bad: The characters are shallow and uninteresting (okay, well, Turk is mildly interesting. Only because he has a Mohawk and a motorcycle though.) They all do things with no explanation as to why they did them. The most important example that comes to mind is Hunter's reasons for loving Aria. I understand why Aria likes Hunter, he's funny, sweet, and pretty, but Aria is materialistic, unintelligent, and she likes boy bands. Why would Hunter ever be interested in her? Also, there were very clear categories that all the characters fits into. I understand the idea of certain characters playing certain roles, but the characters in Mystic City seemed to be YA Fantasy stereotypes. All of the boys just so happened to be really pretty, and all the girls thought about were the boys (seriously, every single girl in the book, even the minor characters, managed to get a word in about how great pretty boys are.) Like romance, those types of characters are good in measured doses, but it's also important to have variety.

The dialogue between characters also ranges from "okay, that's kind of a weird thing to say" to eye-roll worthy to "did he really just say that? Did that actually come out of his mouth?" At one point, there are these love letters that one character writes to another, and for some reason they're written in Shakespearian language, just for the heck of it. This may have been a literary decision on Lawrence's part, but if it is, it's not working.

My biggest problem with this book was how predictable it was. After 15 pages, I felt like I had already read the entire book, because I already knew what was going to happen. Granted, there were a few surprises, but not enough to stop me from putting it down for long periods of time.

All in all, the book is decent. Maybe a little less than decent. I really do think that the world Lawrence creates is interesting, I've never heard of anything like it before, but I think a lot of his good ideas were lost in the execution. However, I feel it's important to acknowledge what he did well, just as much as what he didn't do too well on. I don't think I would reread this book, but I may read the rest of the series just to see where he takes it.

I think I'm going to go back to being a book snob for a while. Next up: Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes