As you probably noticed, I missed the Friday blog yesterday. I apologize, loyal readers. To make a long story short, I transported my laptop incorrectly so that it ran out of power in my bag. When this happens my computer tends to get a bit persnickety with me and refuses to turn on for a day or so even after its charged.
Anyway, onto the review!
“Every Other Day” is a book I read a few months back and had been really looking forward to. The dust jacket description sounded amazing. To paraphrase, Kali D’angelo is a girl who becomes a magically strengthened hunter of evil every other day, and is just an ordinary girl on the opposing day. When she discovers that a classmate has been marked for death by a supernatural creature, she has only 24 hours to save them. The problem? Its the wrong 24 hours.
Sounds fantastic, right? Unfortunately, while it was still a good book, “Every Other Day” doesn’t live up to the promise of its dust jacket. The “24 hours to save her without powers” bit get abandoned almost instantly and the book quickly morphs into an evil conspiracy/mystery title. Kali ends up discovering the origins of her unique powers and learns that the government, with the help of a not so ethical corporation, is involved in a big cover up conspiracy involving supernatural creatures and some shady research to boot. Kali’s quest actually ends up being to discover what she is and save the person who can answer her questions, not the classmate mentioned in the dust jacket.
Now this book does a lot of things right. The action is intense, well choreographed, and well placed throughout the novel. The story is, for the most part, actually quite good. The characters are interesting to follow although I think the cast is a little bloated for the story being told. As a result, there are a lot of characters who are much too important for as little as we end up knowing about them, and several characters who are so similar its hard to keep them straight in your head.
The world-building is also really good and very interesting. You see, in this world everything is just like our world with the exception of one very important change in history. Charles Darwin discovered supernatural creatures were actually real, in addition to the theory of evolution. Now evil species like hell hounds, dragons and chupacabra are studied academically and considered endangered species. You can be prosecuted for defending yourself against them.
Kali eventually ends up discovering the true origin of the supernatural creatures, and in any other book I would have found it awesome. However, the issues I had with the book prevented me from enjoying that reveal as much as I should have.
What were the issues, in my opinion?
Firstly, I want to reiterate that the dust jacket really misrepresents this book. You go in thinking you’re getting one kind of supernatural thriller and end up with something completely different from what you were expecting. Sometimes this can be a pleasant surprise in a book, but in this case it wasn’t. I was so looking forward to the story promised in the dust jacket that, even though the story I got is good, I was disappointed that it wasn’t the story I was expecting.
Secondly, “Every Other Day” is a stand alone novel that tries to pack a trilogy’s worth of world building into a single book. The world-building is really great, as I mentioned above, but the pay-off just isn’t there given that this is a stand-alone title. Maybe if the book had been longer it might have worked, but as is the book sacrifices plot and character for the sake of way more world-building than was really necessary.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Thirdly, and I’ll admit this comment is entirely my personal taste, but I found the origin of Kali’s powers to be an extraordinary let down when it was finally revealed. There were so many interesting directions that could have been taken, so many unique things they could have done there. Instead, what did they do? They made her a vampire. Yes. Just a vampire. Or, excuse me, half-vampire. Really? Are you kidding me?
Granted, I personally don’t find vampires particularly interesting as a matter of course. I liked them in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “The Dresden Files”, “Dracula”, and”Greywalker”. But that’s about it. A fan of blood suckers I am not. Anytime I see one in a book I feel an instantaneous sense of disappointment.
“Oh. This has vampires in it? Sigh. Okay.”
I always try to keep going but rarely manage to maintain interest once the vampires show up.
Still, explaining Kali’s powers by saying she’s a vampire just felt like such a weak pay-off for the enormous build-up the novel has for that reveal. We spend so much of the book wondering what the answer is, speculating and trying pick out clues as to what she might be, and where her powers came from. There were so many tantalizing possibilities, especially when the story about what happened to her mother comes out. It was one of the main reasons I kept reading and a big draw for the narrative.
And then…that’s it? She’s half-vampire? That’s the best they could do with all that groundwork?
*END SPOILER ALERT*
I don’t recommend “Every Other Day” as a matter of course, but I will say that if you decide to read it there is a lot to like and you will definitely be entertained. I originally gave it three stars out of five for “I liked it”, but on reflection I’d probably more accurately score it as 2 stars for “It was okay”.
