A New Beginning? No, a book review draft.

 This is too short, this is also missing quotes from the book, but this is my Book Review Draft... Take it or leave it


The book I have chosen for this particular round of reading is called The Tar Man, a historical fiction novel by Linda Buckley Archer. The Tar Man is the sequel to the book Gideon the Cutpurse, and starts up where the prior book leaves off, with one of the main characters Kate, back in our time, after a trip back in time to the 1700’s. Unfortunately, her friend Peter, who was thrown back in time with her, has become trapped in the past with Gideon Seymour, Cutpurse and Gentleman, while his “slot” in the future has been filled by a terrifying villain named The Tar Man, sometimes referred to as Blueskin. Blueskin, a glorified street thug in the 1700’s does no better for himself in the future, gaining a guide to his new world as well as allies in the London underground, while the story jumps back to Peter, who has been trapped in the 1700’s for perhaps 30 years now and has become a true gentleman of the times, guided and raised by Gideon. Using the antigravity machine to travel back to rescue Peter, they accidentally damage the machine, and are then forced to traipse across France during the French Revolution to fix it. eventually they return to their own time, with the original young Peter, but not before the Tar Man causes unknown damage to our current economy.

The questions I have chosen for this book are as follows:

1. For what audience(s) is this book intended, and how can you tell? (In other words, for whom would you recommend this book?)
2. What are the weaknesses of this book, in your opinion?

1) This book is intended for an audience of young adult readers (i.e., Middle School/High School). It’s fairly easy to tell by the language the characters use, which at time can be very formal in an 18th century way, which at times can be immensely confusing. Especially for someone younger than this age range. The wording is brilliant, and can convey more than one emotion at once, which is important in a book like this. For example:

( quote Here)

This really shows how the way the text and duologue are used to show more human, overlapping emotion, rather than what most books do, which is generalise emotion into simple descriptions such as “She was mad”, instead of something along the lines of “She was in a state of internal turmoil, knowing that she was mad with him, but at the same time she couldn't be angry with him because she knew he did no wrong.” Doesn’t that sound much more human? I personally love it when books show you the more human aspect of the reality the author has created, because every world, real or fictional has to have rules and imperfections, so it only makes sense to let human flaws shine through as well.

This may be a bit of a side note, but one thing that really makes a good book is flaws. The characters aren’t perfect, the world isn’t perfect, their actions aren’t perfect, their mistakes aren’t perfect. And because of this, the book seems so much more realistic and so much easier to relate to, because the book has become reality in a sense, something of an alternate reality. And remember, in a book, we only see part of the world the author has created.

You can also tell by the age of the characters. Peter and Kate, the hero and heroine are both between the ages of 11 and 13, making it easier to relate to them for this particular target group. I suppose that this isn’t necessarily true however, because I’ve known adults who’ve read novels with main characters as young as this and it seemed to me that they were targets just as much the rest of us are. Figuring out target audiences isn’t quite as easy as it seems it would appear...

2) This is a good book, don’t get me wrong, but I found it frustrating how the characters interact while the group is in France. For example:

(quote here)

I found it very frustrating that Peter decided to lie to Kate, that she figured it out, that she began to doubt herself, and then suddenly, there is almost no interaction between the characters on that level, on that particular subject.

Another fairly irritating point was that they didn’t revisit older Peter much at the end of the book. I think it would have been a fascinating subplot on the already twisty roller coaster of the main plot to have older Peter show up again. However, I have yet to read the third and final book in the series, so perhaps this particular plot twist will have to wait for book three.

That is one of the difficulties in writing reviews for books within a series, because you can’t necessarily claim issues with the plot unless you review the ENTIRE series, otherwise, the plot isn’t complete and you can’t really know if something you feel is missing will show up later on in the series.