Customer Reviews

Alchemy

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was hoping to see how others responded too it. This book has been nominated for the American Library Association's Best Books for Young Adults -- a list that will be whittled down to ten books soon and several honorable mentions.

For those of you who don't know much about Mahy, she is an Australian fantasy writer who has been writing picture books, middle grade novels and short story collections for quite sometime. S Odgers, the reviewer from Tasmania, is dead on in mentioning Diana Wynne-Jones and Mahy together. They are definitely kindred spirits.

Mahy's strong suit is an ability to move from reality into fantasy so smoothly that the fantasy part just makes sense. Of course that would happen. She can also be very funny, and often her books/characters engage in wonderful word play. This book is no exception. Jess Ferret, the mysterious center of Alchemy, is always playing with Spoonerisms, switched words, witched swords you know.

In this book, a teacher (well-meaning???) blackmails a popular perfect student, Roland, into striking up a friendship with the school outcast, Jess Ferret, to find out what is troubling her. Jess doesn't particularly want this attention, and can take care of herself thank you very much. But there are several things odd about her. Her outside of school and at school personalities are very different, and her parents' whereabouts are unknown. Her house is frozen, not temperature-wise. And Roland, is struggling with some side of himself that he would prefer not to acknowledge -- and Jess has something to do with that side of himself.

Doing a reverse Mahy thing, walking her fantasy back to real life -- yes, there are people who collect other people's power. They diminish others to make themselves strong. You don't have to look too far to find someone like that. And this kind of person is very much a part of what is happening in this book.

What bothers me about this book though is her treatment of the bad guy. He is very very much an unarguable bad guy. More subtlety may have been more interesting. He has enough irreconcilable points of difference with Jess in particular, and Roland as well, to be a bad guy simply because his view of what should be doesn't work with their view. Not necessarily because he is evil. Mahy could have found a lot of ideas to play with if she were to take that approach, but she also would have had to abandon some of the ideas she did explore in this book.

Like a lot of Mahy's work, I don't think it's really fair to judge on one reading. The second reading is usually much more fun and much richer, because you can see where she is going with things. You are in on it. I've read her books and thought they were blah the first time, and just loved them the second time. I suspect when I read this book again, I'll love it rather than like it.

Margaret Mahy has a skill for weaving the supernatural and natural together, and this coming of age story fits nicely into her traditional style. All the elements are there: Roland, the teenage boy with a hidden potential, Jess who tries to stay invisible at school while keeping wondrous secrets. The various other players, villains and allies both affect these young adults with magic and everyday issues in their relationships. Mahy has written many delightfully rich books that I have been reading since I was a child, and while Alchemy fits the mold of her earlier books, it doesn't quite compare to them.

Roland is a teen who has made for himself the perfect image; he's got lots of friends, has the popular rich girlfriend and is well set to succeed in life. So what is he doing spying on Jess Ferret, the girl in class that nobody is friends with? And what is the secret Jess is hiding? Finding out will change his life forever. Roland quickly discovers that Jess is more than she seems-and that her strange research and interests are waking a part of himself that he has kept hidden for years from everyone. But Roland isn't the only one interested in finding out about Jess, and those that want to discover her secret may have sinister motives of their own. Roland may be Jess's only hope in thwarting the enemies that lurk in the shadows, but in order to do so, Roland must accept his own destiny and come into his own powers.

In theory this book sounds great. Classic Mahy. In actual execution the book just can't quite find it's mark. In some ways, it seems that Mahy is trying to create a male perspective version of The Changeover, one of her best stories. The problem is that there really isn't enough here to make the story really work. The pacing just doesn't work, some of the build up for Jess's secrets makes the truth of what we discover kind of lack luster. The lack of time spent on building up the romance between Jess and Roland, just leaves me feeling their relationship is kind of stuck in the story rather than naturally evolving. The villains are terribly one-dimensional and rather uninteresting-while I might not expect more of some writers, I know Mahy can and has done better by far. She doesn't need to resort to the black-cape mustache-twirling sort of melodrama evinced by the villain here.

Frankly, the themes don't play out either, the title, while relevant to Jess's interest in the subject, seems not to have much to do with the central story of the book. Thinking about what made The Changeover work, while this does not quite, I would have to say it has to do with several things. We never see real risk in this book-it's implied, but never quite shown. In The Changeover, the protagonist goes through everything she does to save her little brother, who is dying. Likewise, while Roland has a quirky single parent, they remain separate from his dealings with magic and with Jess-rather than an additional support base for Roland, his family feels more like a constant distraction. I don't find this to be one of Mahy's best efforts, and can't help but wonder if it is one of her older stories pulled out from the files and buffed up for publishing. It's not by any means terrible-and it has plenty of Mahy's trademark treatment of the paranormal and wonderfully creative descriptions of magic that isn't so much a separate force as a part of the world. But it's thin on plot and lazy on villain construction, so I can't give it more than three stars-particularly in comparison with something like The Changeover.
For readers, this is definitely a young adult book. It's a little mature and with certain relationships and viewpoints that probably make it inappropriate for a good portion of the preteen audience. If you like this book I certainly recommend you look into other Mahy titles, such as The Haunting, The Changeover and The Tricksters. For books outside of Mahy, you may want to try some supernatural horror like Stranger with My Face, or Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan.

Happy Reading! Shanshad ^_^

I really liked this book. It is now one of my favorites. It challenges you to think. Many of the ideas discussed in the book are open-ended for you as the reader to interpret, and it leaves you with a sense of deepness. This book opens your mind to many new ideas and thoughts, and really proves to be a pondering stimulator. Other than all this, of course, it has a great plot, and moves along at a great pace, leaving the end a mystery to the reader. You should definately read this.

Alchemy is another unusual thriller from Margaret Mahy. My personal favourite of hers is The Changeover, followed by The Catalogue of the Universe, but this one is pretty close behind. Like Diana Wynne Jones, Margaret Mahy writes strikingly original and very intelligent fantasy. At one breath I am wondering how they get away with some of the things they write, at the next I'm very glad they do... and long may they continue to do so.

I went to the library hoping to get a copy of the Tricksters, thinking it sounded intriguing from the reviews, but this was the only Margarat Mahy book they had. I've never read any of her stories before and found this one intriguing as well. I love stories about magic and magicians, and this one has them both, but there was something about her writing that prevented me from getting really involved in the story. The force of the narration seemed rather weak, and Roland never came off as a very credible character. What 17-year-old would stick around in a house if they saw an unknown creature coming down the stairs? The book also seemed too sophisticated to be a children's book but not sophisticated enough to capture the attention of most adults. I suppose she was writing for teens, but I don't think most teens would be interested in reading this because the subject matter is too dreamy, almost like a vague sort of fairy tale, and at times the action is very slow moving. It's challenging, and while I know most teens who read are more than up to the challenge, most won't care much for the reward, which is the appreciation of the deeper meanings and details behind a rather juvenile adventure story. Sure, they'll understand them, but it's just not what most teen-agers find rewarding. Still, I'd recommend this to teens who'd like to try a rather different reading experience.

i am one of those people that are like if i dont have to read then i wont but i found this book and couldnt put it down so i just had to get it for myself if anyone can read then they should read this.it might be strange but strange but it gets better/\.

I have found myself rather disappointed in Mahy's recent books--until this one came along. The plot is as complex as anything from Diana Wynne Jones. Susan Price describes the book as 'a sinister story of a conjurer and his mysterious cabinet'. The cabinet concerned is one of those boxes into which someone (ostensibly from the audience) climbs and seems to disappear.

Margaret Mahy doesn't need a gloomy castle to create a creepy, amazingly scary atmosphere. She manages it in an ordinary urban New Zealand house. My home will never seem the same now. :-)

A Friend pointed out three disturbing inconsistencies in this book that I must admit I didn't notice myself. Perhaps she read the book in larger chunks than I did. Perhaps, being younger, she simply has a sharper mind. :-) The inconsistencies are as follows:

1. Roland's age is given as 17 (and he has a driving licence) and his younger brother Martin was born when he was eight. It is then said Martin is currently seven, which would make Roland 15, not 17.
2. The gift of six colouring pens, a notebook and a bar of chocolate later becomes six colouring pens, a notebook and a muffin.
3. Jess says her parents take it in turns to be at the house, and later says she is waiting for both to come home.
It is a sad fact that once a writer becomes famous editors are often too scared to suggest changes and it's disappointing that Margaret Mahy's editor is one of these. I remember my husband complaining about a Jack Higgins novel in which the protagonist cast his boat from its mooring without first starting its engine. Later, a small aircraft being used by the 'goodies' was tampered with in a way the pilot would have discovered when doing his pre-flight check. One could argue that Jack Higgins should have done his homework in both cases because you can hardly expect an editor to know the basic rules of boating, never mind anything about pre-flight checks on aircraft. I wasn't terribly sympathetic to my husband's complaint. I simply told him, 'That's what you get when you read best-sellers!'

This book captured my attention and held it throughout. This book is about a highschool kid named Roland who is popular. He is blackmailed by a teacher into spying on an unpopular girl. He begins to lose interest in his popular friends and cannot get the unpopular girl out of his head. Odd things keep happening to him: he has voices in his head, he feels that he is changing, and an odd figure follows him. He feels that the unpopular girl, Jess, has the key to what is happening to him. She does.

This book was a great page turner with a lot of suspense. My only warning about this book is that it's not for elementary school kids. It has overt sexual feelings in it that elementary school kids wouldn't understand. Recommended for 12+.

I once read a review on this book, before I had read it, that the book was original, but kind of boring. At the time, I didn't think an original book could be boring. Now I understand. I wouldn't say that it's boring, exactly, just empty. The author doesn't take you anywhere. When I finished it I thought to myself, "That's it?" It wasn't moving or inspiring or even the least bit entertaining, which is what books should be.

When I picked up this book, I knew I had read it before, but I couldn't remember a single thing about it, as opposed to The Changeover, also by Mahy, about which I can remember much of the plot, but never the name of the book (although I suppose I've fixed that now, haven't I?). That I found this book completely forgettable the first time around, and not much better the second, probably tells you everything you need to know.