Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson
Jan. 28th, 2014 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.
This is not her story.
Unless you count the part where I killed her.
Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison’s condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can’t explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori – the next Tori disintegrated. Into nothing. But that’s impossible. Right?
When Alison meets Dr Faraday, a visiting psychologist, she feels an instant connection. More, he believes her story. But there’s more to Faraday than Alison can possibly imagine … and the answers he will give her are … extraordinary …
16-year-old Alison doesn’t know what’s happening to her. She knows that she’s always been strange – seeing words and numbers as colours and being able to taste when someone is lying. But when she finds herself in a mental institute, she thinks that she’s finally cracked. The last thing she remembers is a fight she had with Tori, the most popular girl in school. She remembers seeing blood and then Tori disintegrated in front of her. Unsurprisingly though, no one believes her story and with Tori having disappeared without any trace, the police suspect Alison of having murdered her.
Alison herself doesn’t know what to think but wants to go home, which means challenging her sectioning. Help comes in the form of visiting psychologist Dr Faraday who not only believes her but also explains that her strangeness comes from a medical condition called synaesthesia. As Alison and Dr Faraday get closer though, she discovers truths that are just too difficult for her to handle – truths that are literally out of this world …
R J Anderson’s YA novel mixes science fiction with psychological thriller to an ultimately disappointing effect. The first three quarters of this book are a deftly written, tense psychological thriller. The reader’s plunged into Alison’s nightmare, committed to an asylum with no idea of what’s she supposed to have done. The slow reveal of her relationship with Tori together with the fact that she suffers from the medical condition synaesthesia (a fact that Alison herself is unaware of and has been brought up to conceal as a weirdness) is really well done. I loved her relationship with the other patients, especially the mercurial and damaged Kirk (who I really would have liked to see more of) and the dysfunctional relationship with her fearful mother (which gets a soapy resolution). The problem comes with the introduction of the science fiction element. This takes up the last quarter and is heavy handed, expositional and lacks the delicate imagination of the earlier sections. It’s also coupled with an awkward romance between Alison and psychologist Faraday. Aside from being older than her, the relationship is based on a lie and, potentially, an abuse of a psychological position, which really squicked me out. Ultimately, the last quarter really spoiled my enjoyment of the earlier book and as such, I will not be reading the companion novel.
The Verdict:
R J Anderson’s YA novel mixes science fiction with psychological thriller to an ultimately disappointing effect. The first three quarters of this book are a deftly written, tense psychological thriller. The reader’s plunged into Alison’s nightmare, committed to an asylum with no idea of what’s she supposed to have done. The slow reveal of her relationship with Tori together with the fact that she suffers from the medical condition synaesthesia (a fact that Alison herself is unaware of and has been brought up to conceal as a weirdness) is really well done. I loved her relationship with the other patients, especially the mercurial and damaged Kirk (who I really would have liked to see more of) and the dysfunctional relationship with her fearful mother (which gets a soapy resolution). The problem comes with the introduction of the science fiction element. This takes up the last quarter and is heavy handed, expositional and lacks the delicate imagination of the earlier sections. It’s also coupled with an awkward romance between Alison and psychologist Faraday. Aside from being older than her, the relationship is based on a lie and, potentially, an abuse of a psychological position, which really squicked me out. Ultimately, the last quarter really spoiled my enjoyment of the earlier book and as such, I will not be reading the companion novel.
This is not her story.
Unless you count the part where I killed her.
Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison’s condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can’t explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori – the next Tori disintegrated. Into nothing. But that’s impossible. Right?
When Alison meets Dr Faraday, a visiting psychologist, she feels an instant connection. More, he believes her story. But there’s more to Faraday than Alison can possibly imagine … and the answers he will give her are … extraordinary …
16-year-old Alison doesn’t know what’s happening to her. She knows that she’s always been strange – seeing words and numbers as colours and being able to taste when someone is lying. But when she finds herself in a mental institute, she thinks that she’s finally cracked. The last thing she remembers is a fight she had with Tori, the most popular girl in school. She remembers seeing blood and then Tori disintegrated in front of her. Unsurprisingly though, no one believes her story and with Tori having disappeared without any trace, the police suspect Alison of having murdered her.
Alison herself doesn’t know what to think but wants to go home, which means challenging her sectioning. Help comes in the form of visiting psychologist Dr Faraday who not only believes her but also explains that her strangeness comes from a medical condition called synaesthesia. As Alison and Dr Faraday get closer though, she discovers truths that are just too difficult for her to handle – truths that are literally out of this world …
R J Anderson’s YA novel mixes science fiction with psychological thriller to an ultimately disappointing effect. The first three quarters of this book are a deftly written, tense psychological thriller. The reader’s plunged into Alison’s nightmare, committed to an asylum with no idea of what’s she supposed to have done. The slow reveal of her relationship with Tori together with the fact that she suffers from the medical condition synaesthesia (a fact that Alison herself is unaware of and has been brought up to conceal as a weirdness) is really well done. I loved her relationship with the other patients, especially the mercurial and damaged Kirk (who I really would have liked to see more of) and the dysfunctional relationship with her fearful mother (which gets a soapy resolution). The problem comes with the introduction of the science fiction element. This takes up the last quarter and is heavy handed, expositional and lacks the delicate imagination of the earlier sections. It’s also coupled with an awkward romance between Alison and psychologist Faraday. Aside from being older than her, the relationship is based on a lie and, potentially, an abuse of a psychological position, which really squicked me out. Ultimately, the last quarter really spoiled my enjoyment of the earlier book and as such, I will not be reading the companion novel.
The Verdict:
R J Anderson’s YA novel mixes science fiction with psychological thriller to an ultimately disappointing effect. The first three quarters of this book are a deftly written, tense psychological thriller. The reader’s plunged into Alison’s nightmare, committed to an asylum with no idea of what’s she supposed to have done. The slow reveal of her relationship with Tori together with the fact that she suffers from the medical condition synaesthesia (a fact that Alison herself is unaware of and has been brought up to conceal as a weirdness) is really well done. I loved her relationship with the other patients, especially the mercurial and damaged Kirk (who I really would have liked to see more of) and the dysfunctional relationship with her fearful mother (which gets a soapy resolution). The problem comes with the introduction of the science fiction element. This takes up the last quarter and is heavy handed, expositional and lacks the delicate imagination of the earlier sections. It’s also coupled with an awkward romance between Alison and psychologist Faraday. Aside from being older than her, the relationship is based on a lie and, potentially, an abuse of a psychological position, which really squicked me out. Ultimately, the last quarter really spoiled my enjoyment of the earlier book and as such, I will not be reading the companion novel.
