Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Above by Leah Bobet

While the concept of Above was interesting and pretty unique, I never really felt engaged in the book. I don't know if it was because the writing style didn't click with me or because there was never really enough revealed about the story for me to become super involved. The story is told in a broken, lyrical sort of
fashion, thanks to the main character, Matthew, being undereducated yet a teller of stories. The fuzzy background of Safe and all the tales that Matthew keeps and keeps as the Teller were pretty interesting, but I always felt like I was only getting tidbits of the whole history and it was not enough to satisfy me. I wanted more from this book but unfortunately there just weren't a lot of answers here.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it was an okay little read. I liked the storyline, and I was all right with most of the characters, well, most of the characters except Ariel. She drove me a little bonkers with all of her running away and fussiness but I understood more about why she acted that way toward the end of the book; still, I was never in love with her as a character.

The world building was a little shaky; I had a really hard time placing it in a certain time period, but that might have just been because it was from Matthew's point of view and time works differently for him, I suppose. I still wanted to know more about Safe by the time the story finished, and I wanted to know more about some of the characters.

While not particularly fantastic, Above was still a decent read. I just wanted a little more from it, but, eh, I suppose I'll live...