Customer Reviews

The Fetch

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This supernatural fantasy for teens starts off engaging. We're shown the Aisle, a hallway in the afterlife in which each dead soul sees personalized symbolic interpretations of his or her life on Earth. The descriptions of each stop along the Aisle are interesting enough to signal that further riches lie ahead in this story.

Unfortunately, the book fails to deliver. The writing seems detached and does not engage the reader in any emotional way. I found it hard to believe that Calder the Fetch was in love with anybody, or that anybody was in love with him. The rules of being a Fetch -- a dead soul's escort to the "other side" -- are outlined pretty clearly at the beginning of the book, but as the story goes on, it veers in such a way that the rules we learned don't seem to matter any more, and so they aren't referred to. The reader and the characters are left not knowing what the rules are, so nothing really seems to matter. Nothing packs an emotional punch, not even when Calder accomplishes the two things he's supposed to do in order to correct his wrongs.

The idea of including the Russian Revolution and characters from Russian history was a good one, one that probably saved the book from being completely unreadable. I felt that the dramatic possibilities of having Rasputin and the Romanov children as characters were left largely untapped, however.

Going back to the muddled idea of the order of the Fetch, it seemed strange that Liam and the Captain were incommunicado throughout the book, and unable to offer Calder any assistance. I'd think that somebody would at least come through to tell Calder he was in big trouble! And it seemed that Calder had very few resources at his disposal, other than being impervious to physical wounds. The trips to LA and London take up so much of the book, with no payoff. The side plot with the Russian sailor goes nowhere. The side plot with Pincher wraps up in a way that's meant to be significant, but carries no emotional weight. The battle with the forming demon seems thrown in as window dressing -- we never see another demon for the rest of the book. And what happens to Calder at the end of the book is nothing short of baffling -- it comes out of absolutely nowhere, and the reader is given no clue as to what it's supposed to mean.

Give this book a miss.

The Fetch is the second book by Laura Whitcomb that I have had the pleasure to read.

It is the story of a death escort named Calder who becomes enamored with a mortal girl.

If this sounds similar to the Meg Ryan/Nicolas Cage movie, City of Angels, it is because the premise is an age-old one.

Yet, while the premise is one that has been done before, the way Whitcomb uses that premise along with the tense-filled history of the Russian Revolution feels fresh and new.

That said, there is a certain detachment that I felt when reading the story of Calder and his Ana. I don't think it is plot itself but Whitcomb's writing which can be so beautiful that it can read like it is a separate entity from the story.

In short, the prose duels with the plot and that can make for tough reading at times. I kept wanting to say, "I get it, Ms Whitcomb, you are an exceptional master of words but dammit, can you get to the point already!?"

But that opinion might be me being a lazy reader rather than a fully engaged one.

As such, I only knocked the story down by 1 star to make it a 4-star novel.

As some of the other reviewers have already noted, this book seemed to be completely misrepresented. It sounds like a fascinating fantasy novel, but in reality, I found it to be a very slow, very confusing book.

"The Fetch" is Calder, a nineteen-year-old boy who has been serving as an usher of souls for over 300 years. His job is to be a neutral presence when someone is about to die. The person's soul chooses whether or not they want to stay on Earth; if they choose death, Calder and his fellow Fetches take them to the Aisle of Unearthing, a midway point en route to Heaven. Some of the main vows of a Fetch are to not influence someone's dying decision, and to not upset the world of those still on Earth. Calder breaks both of those vows when he switches with a dying soul, in the hopes that he can get closer to the woman he falls in love with while on Fetch duty. His influence on a very famous family changes the fate of Russia forever.

While I found the historical tie-in with the Romanov family a neat idea, the author's execution left something to be lacking. The story is slow and plods along. It's hard to like Calder, the story's protagonist, since he seems so distant (probably a side effect of being dead, but still...) and his choices, especially in the beginning, just don't make sense. I didn't feel particularly sympathetic to his character or find anything relatable in him.

The author also assumes that her readers will know something about Russian history, and the stories behind the main players of the revolution in particular. I found myself having to reference history websites about the revolution, Rasputin and the Romanov family in order to understand what was going on. I think a little more exposition in the narrative - or even some sort of glossary or author's end note - would have been helpful as a reference, since I can't imagine that the target audience would come to this story knowing much about the Russian Revolution. The author also randomly referenced the Titanic disaster, and I had to switch gears in my mind thinking about American vs. Russian history, which didn't help my confusion.

If you're already into that period of history, then I think this would be a fascinating book to read. It's an interesting fantasy version of "what happened to Anastasia?" but for the casual average reader, I don't think it would be an enjoyable experience.

After reading A Certain Slant of Light, I was hungry for more. This book, left me that way:hungry. I think it could have been wonderful, but it just wasnt. It was the same thing almost the entire book, and then the ends just left me hanging. It was ok, but I must say that I am slightly disappointed.

As many other reviewers have mentioned, the premise of this book is interesting and original, but it totally fails to deliver.

I think the big problem is that the author gets so caught up into trying to make the language sound literary and beautiful that she lets the plot and the characters go down the toilet. It almost seems like she starts one books and finishes another.

The back drop is Russian Revolution, Calder, the Fetch, (someone who helps the dead cross over) for some reason,it's never quite clear, other than some bizarre infatuation, seems to fall in love the Czarina and decides to break the rules and cross over into the land of the living and swap bodies with Rasputin. The book seems to imply that the this crossing sets off the Russian Revolution, but this is never quite clear. Anyway, Calder teams up with Anastasia and Alexei and they make a boring and ultimately, pointless trip around the world, with seemingly little difficulty, despite WW1.

None of characters, Calder, in particular are appealing. I don't buy the love story at all between Calder and Anastasia. It seems tacked onto the end so they can sell it as a super natural love story. There were many coincidences and plot devices I didn't believe such as the pirate/sailor family in England and the face powder. It's also never clear why the lost souls are angry with Calder why there is so much unrest. The end of the books is utterly baffling. (Spoiler alert!!) It's almost an Office Space type ending, Calder totally screws up but is completely forgiven and promoted? Calder even says that he will have to fix the evil he lets out into the world, but he never does. That's suddenly forgotten and forgiven.

Besides the weak plot and characters, the books was riddled with inconsistencies and mistakes. For example, when Calder sees Anastasia for the first time, she acting out a scene from a movie. And Calder recognizes it as a movie and says he'd seen a few before. But how? Where has he seen them? When fetches aren't fetching, they're alone in their rooms praying. Besides, it's 1917, how many people has he fetched from movie theaters, not to mention pages before that the author talks about how time flows differently for Fetches, often hundreds of years can go by between fetches. There's also a scene where Calder in his earth life steals a potato. But at the time he was alive, there wouldn't be any potatoes in England, or if there were, they would be rare and highly valuable considering they come from the New World and weren't cultivated in Europe until 200 years or so later. There are lots of these issues, too many to name here...I wonder where the editor was.

It really is a shame, the author's previous book was excellent. This one had so much promise, but I think she focused too much on trying to make the writing beautiful and sacrificed plot and characters, that combined with weak editing make for a disappointing book.

I was very impressed with Laura Whitcomb's first novel, A Certain Slant of Light, so I went into reading The Fetch with high expectations. Unfortunately, the book didn't quite live up to them.

The plot is interesting enough, and the premise of Fetches, or death escorts, offers all sorts of storytelling possibilities. However, that same premise also brought up more questions than it answered. Much of the Fetch mythology seems to be based upon Judeo-Christian teachings (the ideas of heaven, a personified God, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve). However, we're then expected to believe that this mythology applies to people everywhere, people who might not share these collective cultural beliefs. (Not to mention that it must've been quite a task to scrounge up enough Fetches when God decided to unleash the Great Flood. But I digress.)

I also wasn't drawn in by the characters. Calder seemed like a nice enough guy (if a little slow), but we really don't learn much about him. And the way he is rewarded at the end (after making what seems like a pretty big mistake) left me scratching my head.

But I think that what bothered me the most is that The Fetch is billed as a "supernatural romance". Unfortunately, there's not much romance at all. Calder's relationship to the children came across more like that of a protective parental figure. And just as quickly as this "romance" started to materialize, it was over. All the reader was left with was an ambiguous ending and a sense of frustration. Of course, I have an imagination and can imagine my own ending. But isn't that part of the reason we read books? So that we can experience other people's imaginations?

This book was well-written, though. Compared to much of the fiction being published for teens these days, it was a downright masterpiece of good writing. I still like the way Laura Whitcomb writes, and I hope her next book will be as magical as A Certain Slant of Light. However, I am concerned that I'm starting to see a pattern develop. Right now, her two novels both feature body-snatching spirits, ambiguous endings, and consequences of characters' choices that are never properly addressed. One of the reasons I liked her first book so much was because it was unlike anything I'd read before. I would hate to see her become a victim of her own formula by continuing to write the same story over and over again.

This book grabbed my interest from the start with its Fetch lore, Calder's attraction to 'Glory,' and the way the author weaves the story around the Romanovs. But somewhere along the way I thought the book bogged down in its own mythology and I stopped being quite so interested in Calder's story. I often found the situations confusing--who belonged where and on what spiritual plane, so to speak--and I found the romance unconvincing and thought the ending was a little unsatisfying.

It is not really a romance book, I thought. I like the idea of the book. I didn't really care for the ending...It could have been better, it just wasn't.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it was creatively written and easy to follow. On the other hand, I was a bit put off by the general message of the story, which wasn't expressed until the very end of the book.

Calder, our Fetch protagonist, is a very likable and empathetic character. He has a good heart and a humble spirit. He feels unworthy of his job, yet he prods on and does what he was trained to do. The reader can't help but like the guy. He thinks he has fallen in love with a human, so he breaks his holy vows and swaps places with a human who is close with the woman he thinks he loves. From this horrific mistake to the end of the story, Calder tries to rectify what he's done and it takes the entire book for him to finally make amends with his mistake. Then, and here's where I have mixed feelings, instead of being punished or even reprimanded for his huge transgression, he is generously rewarded. To me, this implies that even in Heaven one can do whatever one wants, without fear of punishment. If that were the case, there could be anarchy in Heaven as every celestial being took it upon himself to do whatever he wants, and whenever. I just didn't think the ending was appropriate, but I still enjoyed the book overall.

One of the things that I think would enhance the reader's experience of this book is if s/he knew a litle bit about the Russian royal family before beginning to read this book. It certainly isn't necessary to know anything about them in order to understand the story, but I think the reader would enjoy this book more if s/he knew just a few basic facts about the Romanov family and, especially, Rasputin (and his many "assination" attempts!) To wit: 1) Why Alexis was so important to this family, 2) The signifigance of his illness, 3) The execution of the family, 4) Why Ana and Alexis were presumably selected out of the 5 Romnanov children. A quick Google search would suffice, as it is not necessary to study the family in depth, but just a quick preview of the lives of the royal children and Rasputin's character.

The back of this book indicates that it is a book for teens, but I hesitate to recommend it to teenagers. Not because there is anything inappropriate in it (because there isn't) but the theme seems a bit heavy and, just because the main characters are teenagers, doesn't mean a teenager will like the story. My 16 year old daugher simply couldn't get into this book....she was bored and confused by the historical signifigance of the story.

Overall, I found this book to be creative and easy flowing. I finished it in 2 days.

This book was a different twist on the Romanov/Rasputin story. I've enjoyed reading that part of history and figured I would love this book. While the book wasn't bad and wasn't terrific either. The ideas, setting and characters we enjoyable but the storyline itself had me a little bored. The book seemed to be mostly made up of riding on trains, boats, etc. The characters seemed to be spending more time traveling then doing much of anything else. I felt it was pointless to make up a story about them going in a circle around the world to be searching for something that is not there. Filling it in with little stories of what happens on their transportation destiny. I think the book would be much shorter if this was left out and found it unnecessary and just a lot of page filler. I think the whole story could have been left in Russia and made into something exceptional.