She Treads Softly: The Sky Is Yours

Thursday, January 18, 2018

The Sky Is Yours

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith
Hogarth: 1/23/18
eBook review copy; 464 pages
ISBN-13: 9780451496263

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith is a recommended mix of a dystopian, fairy-tale fantasy, and a coming of age novel.

Local royalty of the wealthy still around, Duncan Humphrey Ripple V has been the star of his own reality show. Now he is eighteen and his engagement is finalized and the wedding contracts have all been written and negotiated. He is to marry Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg (Swanny). When Duncan's small airplane is knocked out of the sky, he lands on an island of trash where he meets Abby, a wild child who has grown up on the garbage island. They fall in love and Duncan takes her back to his mansion right when Swanny arrives for the wedding. But, there were a whole lot of things that happened before and during the previously mentioned action. Then other stuff happens and the three are out and about in the decaying city. Then lots more happens and the three find their destinies.

The first part of this novel felt interminable - it is too slow and has no clear direction in sight. I almost set The Sky Is Yours aside several times while reading it. This is never a good sign. I'm not sure what kept me reading beyond the fact that I had no other book reviews due soon. The quality of writing is quite good, but the plot at the beginning meanders and wanders around taking w-a-y too much time to get from A to B. Actually, A visits many other letters before it even thinks of B. You do need to expect plot holes.

The first part of The Sky Is Yours focuses more on developing the bad traits of the characters, before the other stuff happens. When you start out with characters that were written to be unappealing, or laughed at, they have more to overcome as the plot progresses. But still I kept reading, if only to find out how all the characters and parts introduced early on were going to play out in the end. A point is earned for keeping me reading - and keeping me guessing what would happen next. Another point is earned for the ending which manages to resolve most of the loose ends in an interesting way. The third point is for the world building.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Hogarth via Netgalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.