A Tangle of Gold
Jaclyn Moriarty
What a Corner of White and Cracks in the Kingdom started, A Tangle of Gold is here to make it conclude. Madeline and Elliot’s worlds are going to combine with a crash. Well, the people in them anyway. As all the cracks are shut down and guarded again, others discover exciting abilities to free themselves around the bright colour storms.
Ah, the ending. It tidied things up nicely. Perhaps too nicely. Worlds never end like that. So it could be unexpected, except the minute a couple of people do their ‘expose’ thing, then it becomes obvious what is happening around that, and it proves to be inevitable. It was already so unpredictable, in its own way it was predictable.
How much time can you spend thinking about similes and turned about sentences? Just as sometimes characters from different provinces don’t understand what is going on, neither did I! And not in a good, ‘I will work it out later’, kind of way.
I’m not sure how I felt about the romance. People kissing other people, true loves going wrong, was this a fantasy novel or a teen kiss-and-tell? And really, the chances of them all being so similar? I really can’t talk much about this novel because I’d give away the plot lines. But whatever is happening, and it is happening, the Colours are there to stay.
Again, I find myself undecided on where I would put this novel. I’m going to give it 3 stars again, just like the first two books in this series. I hate to be the party pooper, and I’m sure (I know, in fact), that a lot of readers out there are super keen on the series. I’d suggest reading the first, and then deciding if they are for you.
Thanks to Macmillian for providing me with a proof copy.
All the characters feel one-dimensional, which is ironic, given that pretty much only 2D things can slip through the current crack used by Elliot and Madeline. I’m sure they could all pass through too!
This novel started so slowly and got so confusing at times that I couldn’t work out what was going on. I struggled to get into it, and found myself easily distracted. Near the end, I was finally hit with a shock of ‘wow’, but it only lasted a couple of pages.
I admit I had difficulty remembering which character was which for the majority of the novel. Not the main characters, but the side ones (haha). The abbreviations of their names tripped me up.
Elspeth goes from a lonely loner to someone who dares to have friends. Funny how losing everything seems to do that to a person. She progresses rapidly from someone only concerned about saving herself to someone who can and will help others. It’s that transformation that brought me back to this novel over and over again.
I always wanted more. It wasn’t enough for me that Stephanie’s brother was dead. I wanted the gruesome details. And it wasn’t enough that her mother wept, or that there was something interesting going on in the deal with her grandparents, that we never found out about.
The back of the novel simply didn’t pull me in, but I took it with me somewhere and I couldn’t sleep, so of course this got read! It should have said something more about past lives, and then it would have gotten me straight away.
I didn’t feel a distinction between the perspectives of Lowell and Lycaea. This is a common complaint of mine. Also, for a couple of chapters I didn’t realise that Lowell was a boy. Honestly, I thought it could have gone either way. Lowell isn’t depicted as a fighter, and Lycaea certainly breaks any stereotypes of a passive woman. Kick-ass!
I put off reading this novel because it sounded like yet another ‘Spiritual Quest’ novel that wanted to tell me how to live my life. Instead I found a fiction that was just how the blurb announced it. The only problem was that the blurb read more as an advertising brief than a quick summary of the text.
Oh man, oh man. Where do I get started with this? The jazz and soul music promised to me by the author, or the attractive cover? Or both? I found myself hooked in, with the music and lyrics speaking to me and tying in nicely with the delicious cover. I didn’t feel ashamed of taking it out in public, and in fact read it instead of doing house renovations!