Sci Fi & Fantasy
Solaris
November 1, 2016
400
$9.99
NetGalley
Ghosts have always been cruel to Loxley Fiddleback, especially the spirit of her only friend, alive only hours before.
Loxley isn't equipped to solve a murder: she lives near the bottom of a cutthroat, strip-mined metropolis known as "The Hole," suffers from crippling anxiety and doesn't cotton to strangers. Worse still, she's haunted. She inherited her ability to see spirits from the women of her family, but the dead see her, too.
Ghosts are drawn to her like a bright fire, and their lightest touch leaves her with painful wounds...
‘Every Mountain Made Low’ has it’s pros and cons. It struggles to explain the setting of the story, I’m sure the writer had a perfect idea of how it looks like but as a reader one struggles to find out how the world looks like, not only the ‘real world’ to it’s inhabitants but also the world of Loxley (the main character) who has her own vision of that world.
Loxley is a young girl, abused, misunderstood, misinterpreted by her surroundings who has a mental illness and on top of that can see and interact with ghosts which are not kind to her. She’s dropped into a murder case which leads her into an investigation to find the murderer. The class society she lives in does not make life easier as well. You see; Loxley has everything against her but she finds her way through it.
White did a good job though with the story itself, it’s innovating and combines multiple genres. The angle he uses has not been done a lot before, maybe because he wants to put too much into 1 book or maybe because he found a brilliant, challenging angle. I’m leaning towards the last.
Once you’re into the story, understand how things work; both for Loxley and the imaginary world, you’ll have a great read if you’re willing to open your mind and accept Loxley’s world.
