Ysabel (Simon & Schuster, 432 pages, ISBN: 978-0743252508) is the latest book by Guy Gavriel Kay, a fantasy writer who started out as Christopher Tolkien's assistant during the writing of The Silmarillion.
This is his 11th book. It's about a young boy, Ned, who accompanies his dad (a famous photographer) to Provence on a job and gets mixed up in a age-old feud between two historical figures doomed (?) to keep on being reborn and reenacting their quarrel.
The writing style is very relaxed and I liked that the lead character was a 15-year-old boy. One of the reasons (I realise) that I like children's books is because they don't get bogged down with stuff that I have developed an aversion for (sexual problems, biological clocks ticking furiously, to name a couple). In fact, I thought that Ysabel was a YA fantasy.
However, Kit at Kino said, "No, not YA. The imprint is not a YA imprint."
This annoyed me for a variety of reason, not all of them very logical. I'm as guilty as the next person of labelling and pigeon-holing books. But when Kit said what she did, I pompously replied, "Who cares who the publisher thinks should read the book. Readers make up their own minds."
This is true, but readers might never know the book exists if they tend to only mooch around the YA sections of bookstores.
Anyway, I have passed Ysabel on to be reviewed for the paper.
I liked it, liked especially the two teenage characters, Ned and Kate, who are just clever enough not to be maddening, and charmingly awkward and unsure of their own abilities and instincts. They are attractive characters whom I wanted to know more about as soon as I had met them.
The story is interesting. The way the events unfold keep you guessing and wanting more. However, I don't think Kay developed the plot sufficiently. Too many things are left unexplained and unresolved, and there isn't a sense of satisfaction and closure at the end of the book. Reading the final page I still didn't fully understand the whats, hows and whys of everything that had happened. I was surprised at how simply things were resolved and I continued wondering "Who? How come? What was that all about then?"
Maybe Kay was kept in the dark too? Perhaps his characters have yet to reveal themselves fully to him. Perhaps he intends to write a sequel in which all will be made clear as crystal.
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