Darkwater by Catherine Fisher
Premise: Sixteen-year-old
Sarah Trevelyan would give anything to regain the power and wealth her family
has lost, so she makes a bargain with Azrael, Lord of Darkwater Hall. He gives
her one hundred years and the means to accomplish her objective--in exchange
for her soul. Fast-forward a hundred years to Tom, a fifteen-year-old boy who
dreams of attending Darkwater Hall School but doesn't believe he has the
talent. Until he meets a professor named Azrael, who offers him a bargain. Will
Sarah be able to stop Tom from making the same mistake she did a century ago?
Language: There are several instances of taking the Lord's name in
vain, three or four mild obscenities, and one a little-above mild curse name.
Content: Gambling, whipping children, dark ghost-like forces called
"shadow hounds", alchemy--and, well, the Devil (sort of).
Stars: 2
1/2
Have you ever read one of those books that
by the time you finish you just sort of shrug and go "Okay, guess that's
over, then."
Like,
it ends really lame, but you just stopped emotionally investing so early in the
book that you don't care that it
didn't end the way you wanted it to or thought it should?
Yeah,
well, this book was like that for me.
As a Christian, the premise looked more
than a little iffy. If it weren't for
the fact that Catherine Fisher is one of my favorite authors, I never ever
would have picked up this book.
Sara's
character is good, only in the sense that it isn't your typical
always-has-perfect-morals-thinks-about-everyone-but-herself. She is conflicted, selfish, but strong and independent. By the
end she has matured enough as to be not quite so self-centered.
Tom started out cool, made some bad
decisions, but then was cool again at the climax. He was selfish in some of his decisions, but it was less obvious
because he was (sort of) an only child.
Azrael
was… I don't know. If Fisher meant to
make him the Devil, she did a really horrible job of it. He wasn't evil
enough, and by the end, she sort of made him out to be this kind, sad man--and I'm just reading
like "Say whaaaat?"
The book ended with only half the questions
she raises with the plot answered. The
way they solved their problems wasn't
well done, either. The whole book, Sara struggles with the fact that she
sold her soul to Azrael and will have to die and go with him at the end of one
hundred years. And the whole book the little voice in my head is screaming
"There's a way out that doesn't include finding a different soul for
Azrael to take!"
Catherine
Fisher is by no means a Christian author. So I knew there was no hope of her
using the Lord's unfathomable Grace of salvation to save Sara. But I still
couldn't help yelling that there was a better solution at the characters as
they tried to sort out their problems.
Anyways,
if you were ever considering reading this,
I can't really recommend it. It's not that I wish I hadn't read it. I just didn't get-- (literally nothing)--out of it.
Adioso,
~The Scribbler in the Attic
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