Review: Keeping it Real

The plot took a sudden innovative turn.

Well not innovative really, just more exciting and I’ll admit, in the last half of the book I became almost completely engrossed. I think the problem I was having with Keeping it Real was that I had gone from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments to Justina Robson and they both have very different writing styles geared towards completely different audiences. Clare’s writing turning towards YA readers and Robson’s towards the adult fiction(fantasy/scifi) readers.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about see this post

Ok so review time.

I had a hard time getting into the flow of this book. Perhaps my problem with this book lies in the fact that there is scarcely any explanation of the technology or the magic or any of the theories really. The most explanation given is given in the first two pages of the book in which the “Quantum Bomb” is explained and all of the 7 realms created by the bomb are also explained. Another thing that irked me about this book was the whole beginning, really, the characters jumped around from place to place doing trivial things that seemed to have no connection to the plot whatsoever with the main character having a self pity fest with herself while trying to protect some character who seems to have no real connection to the plot(he incidentally becomes central to the plot later on).

The whole first half of the book just seems listless, I mean usually I can put up with the usual introduction of characters and the formation of the plot yadda yadda yadda because that is where I find some of the most interesting parts in the book where they describe what makes the world “tick” and what drives the world. Without this explanation of the way that this world works we are left in the dark somewhat, and while this may not present a reader who’s focus is more on the sequence of events rather than the back story, it certainly influenced how I got through the first chunk of Keeping it Real.

Ok away from all this bad stuff about the book, let’s talk about where it really shines: action and intrigue. There are action scenes galore throughout Keeping it Real and there are some pretty interesting characters who have the potential to be exciting additions to the main plot as the series goes on (Did I mention this is a series?).

Due to the obvious lack of detail added to the development of the initial setting, the reader is left to work out the way this world is run through the glances and snippets we get throughout the book, which (for a reader like me) makes it impossible to quit reading because I hunger for more information about the mechanics of the universe the characters inhabit and the mechanics of the characters themselves.

I think I’ll have to read the rest of the series to give my full and honest opinion of this book, because as of now I have no idea where it’s going and I sort of want to know. If anybody has read this book I encourage comments, what did you like? What didn’t you like? And of course: Why?

Check out Keeping it Real on Amazon