Customer Reviews

Alyzon Whitestarr

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Alyzon Whitestarr (2005) is a standalone SF novel. It is probably set in contemporary Australia somewhere along the coastline.

In this novel, Alyzon Whitestarr is the middle kid among five children. Unlike the others, Alyzon has no special attributes.

Zambia Whitestarr is the mother of Alyzon and her siblings. She is an artist, although not wellknown.

Macoll Whitestarr is the father of Alyzon and her siblings. Mac is the lead guitarist for Losing the Rope, a local band.

Jesse Whitestarr is the eldest child. He plays a blues guitar in the bathroom and thinks deep thoughts.

Mirandah is the second child. She plays the saxophone. She loves Ricki, but has frequent lover's spats. Maybe that has something to do with her lack of tact.

Serenity is the fourth child. She plays the cello. Lately she has been telling people to call her Sybl. She has also adopted black as her color, but isn't into goth.

Luke is the baby. He is only a few months old, but has a very calm disposition.

Gilly Roundtree is a classmate of Alyzon. Her mother travels a lot, so she lives with her grandmother.

In this story, Alyzon has an accident. A car hatch closes on her head and she gets a concussion. She also has enhanced perceptions and a bit of synesthesia. She notices that everybody has a consistent scent that differs between individuals. She begins to believe that these scents are indicative of their character.

Some people have rotten scents, literally smelling like garbage or other foul stuff. She first notices such a smell from a Dr. Austin at the hospital. Then she smells such an odor from Harlen Sanderson, a widely admired guy in her school.

She also smells transient scents that seem to indicate various moods. Yet these scents differ among individuals. Her Da has an ammoniac scent when he is upset.

Her doctor tells Alyzon that the stronger perceptions will fade away, but they continue for a long while. Alyzon develops mental tricks to shield her from these strong sensations. Mathematics seems to work the best in reducing these effects.

She finds that she can communicate with animals through scents. Wombat -- the family cat -- begins to have long sessions with her. She also makes strong impressions on other animals.

When Alyzon returns to school, she finds that these scents change her feelings for some persons. Her English teacher -- Mrs. Barker -- smells as great as Alyzon expected and Gilly becomes her best friend. But Alyzon tries her best to avoid Harlen.

Alyzon begins to worry about her sister Serenity. Normally she has a violet scent, but her Sybl persona has a licorice odor. She also sounds paranoid, asking if Alyzon is following her.

This tale introduces Alyzon to friends of Gilly, who become her friends as well. They discover that Serenity is meeting with a poetry group at the library, but this group seems to have gang connections. Alyzon also meets Davey, a sweet man with an unseen companion named Simon.

This story has a scientific rationale behind the enhanced perceptions and the evil scents, but the storyline reads more like a dark fantasy. The disease that causes the sickening scents appears to amplify the Id, the least civilized part of the mind. Then it drives these sick individuals to spread the infection.

Highly recommended for Carmody fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of strange powers, evil influences, and young heroines.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I loved this book even though I am not a YA. The book was meaty with a nice page count. The premise was unusual.

Alyzon comes from a unique family of two artistic parents and 4 siblings. One day she gets a concussion and goes into a coma for a month. When she wakes up all her senses are heightened, particularly her sense of smell. She can smell the essence of a persons soul- both good and bad. She begins noticing that certain people smell rotten, and that this indicates the essence of their being is rotten too. As the pieces of the puzzle are woven together we see the mystery play out. The diverse story lines- her spacey Mom, Goth sister, musician Dad, all come together in the climax. This book was well written and engrossing!

The downsides:

1. I am not sure that the exact nature of the infectious evil was explained at the conclusion, which makes me wonder if a sequel is the works.

2. Unfortunately the author does not appear to have a website or blog to find out about her plan for this novel

3.The title does not indicate that this is actually a paranormal fantasy.

4.The cover art could be better. Again you would have to pick up the book and read the dust cover to realize the genre of this

book.

Carmody is a great writer and her Obernewtyn series is one of my fav books. This book was fun, fast-paced and lovely. I enjoyed every page of it!

Alyzon isn't like the other people in her family. She wasn't born with a special gift, and she thought that she would always be the ordinary one in a family of super-talented people. When she experiences an accident that gives her powers of her own, Alyzon realizes there is more going on than what she initially figured.

Her new power enhances her senses so that colors are more vibrant, her memory is the best it's ever been, and her sense of smell is better than all of her other senses. Excitement and intrigue follow Alyzon as she tries to figure out exactly what her powers can be used for.

Will these changes help or harm her family?

ALYZON WHITESTARR by Isobelle Carmody is one of those books that you will want to reread over and over again, with wonderfully written characters who make you feel like they are part of your own family. Ms. Carmody shows her readers what it's like to be the oddball in the family, but makes it enjoyable every step of the way. Definitely a 5-star read.

Reviewed by: Breia "The Brain" Brickey

Also appears on The Screaming Nitpicker.

Alyzon Whitestarr was the plainest member of the Whitestarrs, a seven-person family with many eccentric qualities, little money, and a whole lot of love. She gets knocked in the head with a car door because of Wombat, the obese family cat, and when she wakes up from her month-long coma, her senses have drastically improved. She can hear taste, and see better than ever before and she can smell the moods and essences of others, such as her Da's caramelized sugar contentment and sister Serenity's licorice (as Sybl) and violets (as Serenity) essence. Then when school hottie Harlen Sanderson starts coming around, she finds that he smells disgusting! While learning to control her new senses and avoiding a persistent Harlen, she and her new friends try to discover what this rotting scent of essences means and save Alyzon's family from their various dilemmas.

I was captivated by this idea as soon as I read the summary and the first few chapters. It sat on my wish list for months before I finally ordered it and I'm glad I did because it was worth the read. This book brings up some pretty deep points, such as the talking about doing something to help vs. actually doing it debate and the futility of anger because of how we waste our lives being angry instead of doing something about what has made us so unhappy.

I didn't have a favorite character this time around because I had a soft spot for so many of the characters: Da, the musical, loving father of the family; Mum, the head-in-the-clouds, artistic mother; Jesse, the oldest child who plays blues and has words inside him waiting to be let out; Mirandah, who wears clothes all of one color until she decides it's time for a new color; Alyzon, her new powers, and her determination to keep her family safe; Serenity, who demands to be called Sybl and is easily the most complex character in the book; and adorable baby Luke. Everyone has a little piece of my heart this time around- even the bad guys, except for one of them.

By the way, Alyzon: thank you for not finding Harlen's possessive, almost stalker-like behavior romantic! You found it just as creepy as I did (which is to say, very creepy).

This book had its fair share of flaws, too. Sometimes when I was reading, I would get so annoyed with just how many deep issues Mrs. Carmody was trying to handle in one novel that I commented to myself that the book wanted to be as deep as a bottomless pit. I love deep issues as much as the next girl and can't stand it when a book has no substance at all, but not so many issues in one book, please! My puny human brain can only handle so much before it wants to explode from all the thinking. It did make me think a lot, so that's great.

I felt like the novel was a little longer than it needed to be. Long books are awesome too, but there were a few places that I feel like things were drug out for a little too long. If I went through the book right now, there are at least ten pages I could immediately strike out as not-very-contributive and with more careful analysis, who knows how many more might be eliminated?

Another little thing that made me wonder was that Alyzon told her friends- who, in reality, were mostly people she'd just met- about her new powers when the family that she was so close to was left in the dark. I almost understand because of the circumstances around the time that she told them about her enhanced senses, but then I remembered how odd her family was. Does she think they won't understand because of how weird it is, yet that these near-strangers will because of what happened just before she told them? I don't get it.

For a little while, I was worried about false advertising because I was at page 300 or so and hadn't seen any signs of the mythical romance. If there's anything I hate, it's false advertising on my books. It did show up, though I felt like Alyzon and the guy she had the romance with had a better friendship dynamic than a romantic one. I would have preferred that they stayed just friends because part of what brought this book down was this mostly-inauthentic romance.

I also feel this book was miscategorized. On the back cover, it calls itself "a fantastical tale of... the paranormal," but I wouldn't call this a paranormal romance book. I would call this more of a sci-fi lite book. Alyzon's powers have an origin that's grounded in reality- brain damage- and the rotting of the souls is often called a virus or sickness, which also makes it feel more scientific than fantastic. (On a very late note: I found it amazing how many people the sickness touched. Just... wow.)

This wasn't a bad book by any means, but there were a few issues holding it back from being truly great. 'I do recommend it, but be ready for a book that develops rather slowly and tries to cover a huge number of subjects in a fairly large amount of pages. It'll make you think or your money back! I just wish there was a sequel; when I did a search, I found something saying that the author was unlikely to write a sequel to Alyzon Whitestarr.

I honestly thought that this book would be just a cute story, but it is actually alot better than that. I was amazed how well written it is. I would definately try and read more stories by this author.

I found this book to have a fascinating premise. It reminded me somewhat of the Madeline L'Engle books like A WIND IN THE DOOR. This takes the idea of a pervasive evil in the world, so familiar in recent literature, and gives it a different twist.

I thought it intriguing and thought provoking.

Although the setting is modern, the ideas are ancient. The myths presented in this book can be transferred into many other settings of life. Young person discovers new talents, learns how to use talents, uses talents for good, and is a winner! This could be true of any age person, but young people can be pushed to see their own talents without being hit on the head. A good read.