Book Review: "Lawless" by Jeffrey Salane

SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY

M Freeman has spent her young life rather sheltered as she has been homeschooled and raised by her mother. But she knows she wants to get into a special school called “Lawless” where her father went as a child. Now that her father has passed on, it means more than ever.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

M is smart and eager to learn but slightly naive. She seems to be rather singleminded, as she has put all her hopes going to a school she knows nothing about.

Zara is M's guardian. The older girl is sarcastic and cynical. For the most part, she doesn't seem to really care about M.

Merlyn is a young man who starts school the same time as M. He meets her on the ride to the airport and is rather geeky. He is good with tech.

Cal is a handsome blonde boy whom M seems to have a slight crush on. But revelations cause her not to know how to feel about him.

Mrs. Watts is a teacher and ends up being on M's final exam quest.

PACING

The pacing of the story is good. We get M's interview and then her trip home. We may not jump right into the action but there is enough mystery to move the story along and make the reader curious. Even when M gets home there are twists. By the time she makes it to the airport and the action starts, I was kept interested.

THE FULBRIGHTS

A shadowy organization called the Fulbrights are a threat to the Lawless school. M meets them in the beginning at the airport. Oddly enough, M sees them seem to shimmer. Not much is told to M about them until near the end of the book.

WHY ME?-SPOILERS

From the plane ride M ends up asleep and then awakes in the cock pit. She has to land the plane because there is no pilot. Although she thought she saw someone.

I was surprised that M didn't go crazy to Zara or at least to the first adult she met off the plane. I would have been furious. She is just a child, and this is the kind of organization that they're running?

It wasn't even Lawless involved in this madness. She is told someone think's she is special (and perhaps worth testing...) so they just look incompetent. And when M points out she saw a man they blow her off and call her crazy. They just snarkily tell her they landed the plane remotely.

I would be thinking this had all been a mistake and I needed to get out of there the first opportunity. Or at least I would second guess myself. But M only seems annoyed. Not furious.

THAT WAS LUCKY-SPOILERS

When M is required to go to Orientation she loses her ID so she sneaks her way in. This involves getting creative and ending up in the ceiling. I suppose it would make sense if all she needed to do was hear the information given and not be seen as present. But she ends up crashing through the ceiling.

Instead of falling to her death she ends up getting caught in some wires. I found it rather silly that she only escaped death by being lucky. I get that the ending was clever, when the head of the school introduces her. But it felt rather stupid.

They knew her ID would have been stolen since she was the mark, and should would have to risk her life. What would have happened if there had been no wires? Oops, I guess we're having a funeral after orientation, guys.

M'S MOTHER

M admits her relationship with her mother isn't really good. It's very formal and when M leaves home, she doesn't even get to talk to her mother alone.

Then it's revealed she has gone missing while M is at school. But she makes a return while M is on her final exam quest. I actually liked this scene.

For once, M shows some emotion, arguing and yelling at her mom. She rightly gets mad at not being told what's going on and explains how worried she was. But this is all cut short and we don't learn anything more about her mother.

M'S FATHER

M's father died in a plane crash, leaving M with a moonrock necklace. She learns that he was very smart and actually invented a cypher used at the school.

SECRETS REVEALED-SPOILERS

In the beginning, M believes both of her parents are art historians. All she really knows about her dad was he attended a school called Lawless. But when she arrives at the school she learns the truth: her father was a master art thief and her mother a con artist. Turns out only a graduate of the school can speak about it, so her mother could not. Only her father, and he passed away.

Eventually M learns that her father was killed, his death wasn't an accident.

SEND HER HOME-SPOILERS

There is a scene halfway though the story where M is threatened to be sent home. I didn't really think she would be sent away, but perhaps the scene had to happen so we could see Zara defending M. And perhaps to see how ruthless and uncaring people like Mrs. Watts were.

Later, Zara reveals that Ronin are those who fail at Lawless. They spend the rest of their life on a watch list, being kept on lock down. Perhaps Zara was thinking about how bad this would be for M, although I don't really understand why she cared.

MYSTERIES GALORE

Various mysteries are presented throughout the story, which helps with the pacing. We start with an empty envelope and meet Zara, who is obviously not what she seems. And when M arrives at the school, it she learns the truth about her parents, all the while her witnessing an adult on the plane is brushed off. No one seems honest. Eventually she even gets a map that has secret information on it. It's the story's strong point.

THE PROBLEM WITH M

I think the main problem with M is that she never doubts her decision to come to lawless. She never thinks, what am I doing here? Or, these people are crazy, I can't trust them. Instead she stays rather naive, assuming that Lawless are the good guys and Fulbrights are the bad ones.

After all, they just steal stuff. No big deal. I was annoyed at her shallowness. Did she ever stop and think that maybe stealing was bad? Maybe it was motivated by greed? What if when stealing, someone got in the way? What if you had to hurt them, or kill them in order to complete the theft? Could she do that? Should she? But M never thinks of these very likely scenarios.

SCHOOL LIFE-SPOILERS

I thought some of the ideas were interesting. Like M being made a mark on her first day and losing all of her items.

Also the idea of “the Box” as some super scifi place where you coud be transported anyway was unique. I just thought M's reaction to it should have been more awed. I felt like I had been transported to Star Trek. How on earth did they get such technology? The room wasn't all an illusion as it actually transformed physically. But I didn't understand how it worked at all.

The jacket with the bells on it was interesting as well, and I liked having to watch M and her teammates work together to get their target.

WE'RE FRIENDS NOW

M admits early on that she is a loner. As such, I would have expected her to have a hard time making friends. But there are no awkward moments. No misunderstandings, no lack of social skills. I wanted to see her form a same-sex relationship and then try one with a boy and realize it's not the same at all.

But there was no friendship process exactly. She has teammates when they have to tag a student, but besides some sarcasm traded there wasn't any sense of relationships developing and the difficulties involved.

I suppose the bulk of the story is focused on the separate tasks and adding mystery. So the relationship angle is completely neglected. It's unfortunate.

TRUST NO ONE?

M gets betrayed by one character who isn't a friend. Then she starts to almost like a character even though she was told not to trust them. In the end she gets betrayed but this character comes back and helps her.

M thinks things are not black and white. But I just didn't care about the betrayal because I barely knew the character who did the betraying. And I was starting to get annoyed at the excuses being made for them.

CAL'S MISTAKE-SPOILERS

During their team mission, Cal ends up using the jacket of bells on their target, which electrocutes them. He does this all with ease, smiling when it happens. This creeps out the other kids, especially M, who doesn't understand who he is.

Cal gets reprimanded and the whole school shuns him for a bit. Because thieves steal, but they never hurt anyone. Ever. As illogical as that seems.

In reality it's not hard to believe a school that specializes in breaking laws would have a subset of students who would laugh at the idea of some sort of moral code.

THE MASTERS

M learns about a group of leaders in Lawless called the Masters. Turns out her father was a member and so was Mrs. Watts, who seemed to have a history with him.

A BLACK HOLE

In the 1600s, a man named Jonathan Wild was known as the king of thieves. When finally imprisoned he read science books that lead him to the idea of black holes. When M asks why, Zara says that Wild was crazy.

His followers eventually divided into the fulbrights and the lawless. It felt rather vague and unnecessary. As if the author felt that the story needed a bigger threat than two criminal institutions fighting each other. He he had to throw in a way to threaten the whole universe.

CLIMAX

M ends up returning to Lawless where she discovers everyone is on break. There she meets Fox Lawless and retrieves her painting. But it turns out everyone is evil (big surprise) but M gets help from a surprising source to escape.

CONCLUSION

The story itself is an intesting idea that's not executed well. A secret school where kids learn to be criminals. And yet it somehow falls flat.

It's strong points are in the pacing and the suspense. But the pay off isn't always fulfilling and often times, the reaction feels overblown.

As for the weak points...firstly, the character of M is shallow and lacks any depth. She wants to go to a school she knows nothing about and when she gets there, never once doubts her goal. Even with suspicous behavior around her. Perhaps this story would have been better told as a YA, where the reality of immoral behavior could have been addressed, and not ignored.

Secondly, the relationships or lack of them. All other characters are just outlines with vague characteristics (Merlyn the geek, Cal the mysterious cute guy) without any history. And yet I was supposed to believe they were all friends with M.

M doesn't even have a relationship with her own mother. You would think this would affect her own social skills. Because I didn't know any of the characters I never cared about them. Not even when one is kidnapped and another betrays M.

I give “Lawless” two and half stars.

Book Review: "The Night Dance" by Suzanne Weyn

SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY

Based on the fairy tale “the twelve dancing princesses”, Rowena and her sisters live a sheltered life thanks to their father. Rowena dreams of freedom and her mother. The girls eventually find a secret tunnel under their room but their father is determined to discover why every night their slippers are ruined, even though they are locked in their rooms.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Rowena is the main character and the only sister we get to know. She dreams of a normal life, and starts having visions throughout the story.

Sir Bedivere is a knight that followed King Arthur and ends up having to return excalibur to a lake. But he doesn't know where to start. One of his hands is paralyzed. He is rather self conscious about it. Not much about his life is known before the scene, except his love for his king.

Morgan Le Fey is actually a side character throughout the story. She has taken place where she can watch over who she sees a threat to her power.

Sir Ethan is an overprotective father of twelve daughters. After his wife went off and vanished he kind of goes crazy and builds a huge wall so he daughters can never leave home.

Vivianne is a great sorcerer who spends the most of her story trapped. But we do get her history revealed to us. She loves her husband and daughters dearly.

TRUE LOVE OR LIES?-SPOILERS

When Sir Ethan was younger, he got lost in the woods and met a beautiful woman. So he married her and never left the woods.

Vivienne admits it was all manipulation, as she cast a spell to bring her an ideal lover. Sir Ethan had no say in the matter and we are not told much of his life before then. Did he have a family? Perhaps a woman he was courting? It says he was in the military, was he taking part in a war?

Apparently Vivianne doesn't care about free will. And yet she says that eventually their relationship becomes real love. How would she know? Does the spell have a release date? Did Sir Ethan eventually get to return to his old life instead of living as a hermit in the woods? Don't think so. This whole relationship feels obsessive and a perversion.

Ethan even reveals he doesn't know if its real love or not, but he doesn't care.

VIVIENNE'S HISTORY

Turns out that Vivienne was a great Sorcerer who worked close with Merlin. People became jealous because of this and her life was threatened so she ran off into the woods. But she didn't want to be alone so she made Sir Ethan come to her.

But she is so important that every so often she goes off without telling her husband a thing so she can still be useful to King Arthur. I don't know why Merlin wouldn't be more important and why she is even necessary. She gave him the sword and asked that after he dies that it was returned to her.

Eventually Morgan le Fey traps her under a lake, because I guess she isn't powerful enough to kill her.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Rowena shares the gift of her mother and has visions. She sees Bedivere and immediately falls in love. Unfortunately it comes across as a shallow relationship based on nothing more than sexual attraction. Him noting how beautiful and graceful she is; Her noting how handsome and brave he is, ect.

I understand that most romantice relationships start this way but they have to evolve into something more. But this one never does. Even when Rowena and Bedivere actually meet. They don't learn much about each other and it seems obvious that Rowena is merely starved for affection.

The dialogue between them is particularly awful as it's not realistic, instead they speak as though they are reciting bad poetry. The majority of their relationship is spent talking about how much they love each other, not actually getting to know each other or developing their relationship.

NORMAL GIRLS

When the daughters learn that there father is putting locks on their doors (because of their ruined slippers) they decided to complain. They wonder why they can't be normal girls who go to parties and meet men. Shouldn't some of them already by married?

I kept wondering, why hadn't any of them asked this before? They weren't children anymore and yet they never thought to ask why they were kept as slaves behind a wall? This cetainly isn't treated as an argument that they have had before. Especially considering where it leads.

Ethan finally admits they are right and says perhaps he needs to find them matches.

If the girls had been sheltered their entire lives, shouldn't they have been happy to be able to marry and leave? Their father may be kind of crazy, but I doubt he would force them to marry someone they completely hated.

MORGAN LE FEY

After sensing Vivienne's power, Morgan thinks that she is trying to contact her daughters. So she goes there in disguise, hoping to find out if they girls know anything. She wants to prevent Vivienne from getting Excalbur because it went missing in battle because she wants it for herself.

Unfortunately I found her more annoying than threatening. I certainly never hated her. She never considers killing off any of the girls, and if she had I think she might have came across more menacing.

The final and first real encounter with her near the end was lacking. And I thought it was odd that in the history lesson we learn she seduced a knight and used him to trap Vivienne. But he is never mentioned again.

MORGAN'S SPELL-SPOILERS

Morgan casts a spell to distract the girls when she decides they are too much of a threat. They might actually discover where Vivienne is, because she spoke to them through a scrying bowl and led them underground to a secret tunnel. So she makes the tunnel take them to a magical place that leads to dresses and music. Not to mention men with stag's heads. The girls dance with them all night, every night, forgetting about their mother.

THE GIRLS MEET A MAN

After spending all of their youth and adulthood away from any men, when they first get to meet one, they immediately start flirting. I thought this was unrealistic.

In reality they would have treated him rather oddly, perhaps like they would treat a girl. After all, they are sheltered like children. They have never been courted and never met a man to flirt with. And besides being forbidden to be around any men, they haven't been taught any boundaries or had any expectations put on them.

By all accounts this scene should have been silly. And yet the girls come across as femme fatals who are eager to seduce a man.

WE CAN TRUST THE STAG MEN

I understand that there is a spell that makes the girls rather docile and tempts them to keep returning even though they have no idea what this place is. But When I learned that the girls' asked one of the stag men for a sleeping potion I was left stunned.

Did the spell also make the girls not just docile, but stupid as well? I expect they got this idea while back in their room, not under the spell. So when the potion nearly kills the man I couldn't believe how stupid they were. Didn't any of them think this might be a bad idea?

VIVIENNE AND HER DAUGHTERS

When it comes to their mother, the Rowena and Eleanore have different feelings. Eleanore is mad because she thinks her mother abandoned them. I didn't get to know any of the girls besides Rowena and her. But Twelve girls are a lot, so I wouldn't expect to get to know all of them. After all, we still have Bedivere, Vivienne and Morgan Le Fey with their own stories. Even so, I wish there had been a way to at least make them more distinct characters.

SIR ETHAN'S INSANITY

It's obvious that Ethan isn't emotionally stable. And yet the girls never discuss this. They complain that they don't get to meet men and marry but never seriously admit that their father is nuts. They also complain that one will be handed over as a prize (when in reality a story taken in this time period would not put romantic love before all, as arranged marriages were the norm throughout most of history.)

I get that the point was to show that Ethan felt betrayed by a woman he married for love (even though he didn't, he was under a spell that was never taken off as far as we know). But nothing works because it's never acknowledged what screwed him up, not just being abandoned to raise twelve girls, but to have had no choice to the marriage to a woman who had many secrets in the first place.

FACE OFF?

The problem is that there is no real fight between Morgan and Vivienne. Morgan uses vines of trees to attack Sir Bedivere and Rowena. Besides her rock monster and using a man's form to attack Bedivere (earlier on) she isn't really threatening. It's all very anticlimatic.

VIVIENNE AND HER HUSBAND

When Vivienne returns it's a shock to Ethan. But they reconcile rather easily which I feel was unrealistic. Maybe this was due to the lack of time left in the book. But I feel like Ethan has had a long time to think about his relationship with Vivienne and how it was obviously a perversion. And yet he never seems to realize that. I guess he was just mad that she left.

But when she explains why, all is forgiven. It annoyed me that the whole thing Ethan is a submissive man unless it comes to his daughters, then he is just an irrational jerk. This could be made sense of, but only if his past relationship was considered to be immoral.

CLIMAX

Rowena pretends to give Bedivere the sleeping potion and he follows them underground. Morgan Le Fey follows them. Eventually Vivienne is freed, there is a brief fight with Morgan and they return home.

CONCLUSION

“The Twelve Dancing princesses” doesn't give you too much to go of off, so there is plenty of opportunity for creativity. And this take does try to be original, mainly because it occurs during the reign of King Arthur and incorporates Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake.

Unfortunately I found myself rather indifferent to characters that were either portrayed as shallow or were barely portrayed at all, like Eleanore.

The romance between Sir Bedivere and Rowena dominates the story, even though they don't actually meet until halfway through. They fall in love in a matter of minutes and their romance is portrayed as flowery, shallow and in the manner of a bad romance novel.

Morgan le Fey is a rather underwhelming character and Vivienne comes across as selfish, while Ethan is an unacknowledged victim. He never got a choice in his marriage and seems traumatized by it. I felt bad for him but he doesn't get any redemption since his trauma isn't really acknowledged.

It's not the worst adaption I have read of this fairy tale, but it's also not good. The story itself had potentional but the characters didn't help.

I give “The Night Dance” two stars.