One morning the people of the North woke up and the people of the South were gone. That s the first thing every child learns on the colony world of Jigsaw. But for one girl, knowing about The Disappearance is not enough. Hawkeye wants to know why. That's why she spent half her life researching The Disappearance. And that's also why eight Neighbors show up on her doorstep, demanding that she accompany them into the Forbidden Cities ruled by the Southern gods to speak with the Spirits of Glory. Everyone thinks Hawkeye is an expert on Neighbors, these almost-humans who move, talk, and think as if they were born inside one of the Time Fractures. But she can't imagine what they want to ask the ghosts of their ancestors, or why they need her to go along. The Southern gods caused every human inhabitant of the Southern cities to disappear overnight, what else might they do?
Wow, I got through this book in one sitting (it's pretty short) and every single page of it had me entranced. I like my books to have some good world building and I think that that is exactly what gripped me with this one. Devenport's sci-fi world of Jigsaw was so well written, there are so many places where the world could have gimmicky, or confusing but despite everything going in in the history of this world it was so easy to follow. I loved how well written the sci-fi elements, like the 'time fractures' were and I was totally immersed in this broken world that I was reading about.
The storyline was fantastic. I knew it was going to be different from page one, but it was so unique. I loved reading about the Neighbours, as well as discovering their secrets along with Hawkeye, I loved travelling to all these places which were fascinating and thrilling as well as damn right scary. The pace of the story was perfect and never let me get bored and Devenport's writing is just magical, it literally took my breath away at places.
If anything was even slightly lacking it was some of the characters. I don't think that Boss was developed quite as well as I would have liked, which gave him an air of mystery but also made him unnapproachable as a love interest, none of the other neighbours were quite developed very well. Ebony and Ivory were nice enough, but I didn't really feel anything for them. On the other hand, the scavengers were developed as bad guys and I was terrified of them, I loved the characters of Brat Cat and Wolfy Dog as well, for animals they were pretty awesome. Hawkeye was an amazing protagonist, though not as relateable as I like but then again she is living in a world very different to our own.
Overall I absolutely loved this book, it was sci-fi at its best. If I have any issues it may be that the characters weren't developed as well as I would have liked.
Overall Rating: A
Book received as an eBook from the author, for review.
I love when you get a book that you just can't put down.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing this one to my attention, but I haven't really been reading much e-books these days.