Everville (1994)

Tesla Bombeck had many adventures in her life that were like stories. This connects people's lives and weaves them around each other. It's also about a dream world. ( )

Gonna have to pick this one back up. Barker is a favorite for sure. But at the time I had to set it aside. ( )

too dull to finish ( )

Maybe I feel this way as I have not read the book that came before, but I really just couldn't get hooked to this. My mum recommended it to me and I tried my best but I have just dropped it to read the Hunger Games instead. Again, this was my first time reading anything by Clive Barker and I only learnt after I began the book that it was a sequel.

It started off slowly and I was really interested in the beginning but as it went on I lost interest. I liked the idea of Quiddity but I felt there could of been more to it before they started to destroy it and the people.

I liked Tesla a lot, but having not read The Great and Secret Show I didn't understand a whole lot of what was going on with her and her past. I enjoyed the conversations with Raul and how they had built some weird sense of friendship in the space they shared. But again, I never quite understood how he came to be there.

As for Pheobe and Joe, I cared very little for their relationship and the way it was played out in the book. I disliked Joe going to Quiddity and trying to gain power only to end up rather trapped there. He seemed to forget all about Pheobe very quickly and only seemed to remember when they met again.

As for Kissoon he seemed like a brilliant villain along with his Lix. (Those were disgusting) But I never really gained a good sense of the motives behind his actions.

Overall, I had no idea what was really going on but I carried on anyway. I suppose that is my own fault for not realising it was a sequel. Maybe one day I'll try reading The Great and Secret Show. ( )

Somehow I missed the fact that this was a sequel when I picked up this book. I only gradually picked up on that as I read, when the text kept referring to characters as if I should already be familiar with their histories and with past events. That, the large cast of characters and the disjointed nature of the writing left me confused and frustrated as I delved deeper into the book.

I must confess that I as hooked by a strong, interesting beginning, but I was quickly lost in a muddy sea of characters and events, feeling I was on the outside without some secret knowledge that would allow me to fully enjoy the book. Barker should probably have done a better job of making this a standalone novel, and the book’s cover should have done a better job of making clear that this was a sequel (in which case, I probably would never have started reading it in the first place). As it was, I was left feeling dissatisfied and like I had wasted a huge chunk of my reading time, once again convinced to remove Barker’s works from my reading list. ( )