Customer Reviews

Mind the Gap (Hidden Cities)

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

 

 

Mind the Gap follows Jasmine Towne, who following her mother's murder by the mysterious Uncles, hides in the forgotten tunnels of London's underground system. Here she meets a group of children - the United Kingdom - looked after by an old man called Harry. With nowhere else to go she joins them - but the Uncles haven't stopped looking for her.

I'm not sure this is a book I could recommend to others. I would say it's a Young Adult book, except for the use of the f-word throughout, and I'm not sure what adult market it's aimed at. It's also somewhat depressing, painted in monochrome rather than colour. Pardon the pun - but there's little light at the end of the tunnel. It seems whenever Jaz thinks she's found a place or a person for herself something goes wrong. Don't get too fond of any endearing character.

Jaz as a heroine, didn't always ring true to me. In the flashbacks she doesn't always sound like a teenager. Given the circumstances maybe it's likely she would sound older than her years. However, there's the problem of her sounding older in flashback than she does in the present.

There were parts that I enjoyed. I felt like there were many Londons being woven into this story. Quite a lot of it had a Dickensian feel, the United Kingdom gang is reminiscent of Fagin and his boys from Oliver Twist. The use of the passage from Great Expectations towards the end of the book I thought worked really well.

There's also a slight fairy tale feel. Jaz likens herself to Wendy Darling (Peter Pan) and when she first descends into the Underground there is an atmosphere of Alice going down the rabbit hole.

The descriptions are well written and drew me into the book. When Jaz first flees into the Underground we're there on the Tube station with her, feeling the trains screaming past and seeing the unwelcome darkness of the tunnels. On the first burglary I was with Jaz as she entered the house, I felt her exhilaration and fear as she realizes there is another burglar in the house with her, and could almost taste the adrenaline rush as she decides to go ahead with her own robbery anyway.

Although this book isn't a keeper for me, I am glad I read it, after all you shouldn't get too stuck in your reading comfort zone. But I'm not sure whether I'd buy any follow up stories.

An intriguing idea--all the ghosts of London past passing through the city's Underground system--but not entirely original. I believe CJ Cherryh did something similar with her dying sun stories set in London, Paris, & Russia. The motivation of the main character was very believable but I would have liked this more had the supporting characters been more fleshed out.

Mind the Gap is an engrossing book that never quite goes far enough into the fantasy world for my tastes; it merely dances on the edge between fantasy and the real world, keeping more toward the reality side. When Jazz first retreats into the abadoned parts of London's subway system, I expect and hope she's going to hook up with something horrific, or wondrous. But instead she just falls in with a modern-day Fagan and his band of child thieves living in an old bomb shelter, and becomes a female Oliver Twist. She does have a few ghostly encounters underground, but nothing ever really comes of them, until the very end, at least. There are a lot of eldritch sparks flying throughout the book, but they never really catch fire. Jazz is merely an observer of the ghostly, until the end of the book. "Oh, look, ghosts."

It's a fairly pedestrian brush against a fantastical and hidden world that never quite materializes. The things you sense lurking in the shadows never reach out and grab the characters; the things that go bump in the night bump almost too softly to be heard. The authors tease us with abandoned, bricked up tunnels and doorways that hint at secrets beyond, but they never actually tear the bricks away and take us into those tunnels or through the doorways to reveal the secrets. I want to explore these hidden, forgotten places that the authors hint at, but instead they keep taking us back topside to the real London, dragging us along on the main character's adventures in cat burglary, and her involvement with a master cat burglar who turns out to be something more.

The authors do an excellent job of creating numerous moments of supernatural tension. But the tension is never really unleashed in a startling burst; it just sort of fizzles away. But it's a well-told story, extremely well-written, with a lot of tense moments. It hooks you at the very beginning and keeps you hooked, taking you on a fast-paced, entertaining literary journey that reaches a frenzied, satisfying ending. It does its job well enough, so I can't complain if the journey doesn't take me exactly where I want it to.

Mind the Gap: A Novel of the Hidden Cities
Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
978-0-553-38469-7
$12US trade paperback, 370 pages
May 20, 2008

After Jasmine Town is a near-witness to her mother's murder, she finds herself alone and on the run, the words her mother had written in her own blood driving her away from home. Jazz hide forever. Her mother had told her for as long as she could remember never to run, to lose herself in a crowd, that running only drew attention. However, in a panic, she bolts into an Underground station and causes a fuss on the platform. Seeing an out, she takes it -- a narrow ledge beyond the platform which leads her to the doorstep of another life.

In what used to be a bomb shelter, she finds a storehouse of goods and foods. And a group of `lost children' and their `leader', who call themselves the United Kingdom. A group of thieves and pickpockets, these children rely upon these skills for their livelihoods. They take Jazz into their fold where all the paranoia her mother raised her with serves her and the United Kingdom well.

Jasmine Downe's story is one any fan of young adult fantasy, sleight of hand magic, and intrigue is sure to enjoy.

I enjoyed 'Mind the Gap'. There were a few discontinuities, but overall it is an engaging and creative book. I had some frustration with a few things, i.e. the United Kingdom characters could have been more fully developed, and the backstory had a few holes. However, these were pretty minor. The authors must have done a ton of research into London's forgotten Tube stations; the concept of gangs living underground and making use of these was fantastic.

I found this book to be very different and rather exciting, also a little disturbing.

Coming home Jazz felt something was wrong in the house where she lived with her mother. Her parent taught her to be alert and always look over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming after her. Heeding her niggling feelings, she sneaks into her home and sees the Uncles there looking like they were waiting for her to arrive. She enters her mom's room finding her dead with her neck slashed; her mom's final words to her written in her blood: Jazz hide forever".

Fleeing her Uncles, Jazz enters an Underground tunnel beneath London where the homeless, the disenfranchised, and the mentally ill reside. She joins forces with the United Kingdom; consisting of young people led by Harold "Harry" Pilkington Fowler. They take her into their home and she becomes a thief in the world above. The Uncles' have thugs searching for her and he finds her. He kills one of her new friends and injures Harry. The United Kingdom kills one of them because these amoral hooligans do not care one iota about collateral damage in their quest to capture Jazz. Above ground she meets burglar Terrance, who is similar to Harry. Vowing revenge for her mom and the dead boy, Jazz plans to take the battle to the Uncles.

The London Underground is a city underneath the metropolis that topsiders are unaware exists; it has its rules, cultures and beliefs like any society have. It is also a place where Jazz sees scenes of magic of London in bygone eras. Jazz is the glue that holds the story line together; she is strong and obstinate as she refuses to cower any longer determined to take the fight to her enemy. Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon provide an engaging fast-paced yet eerie teen thriller as the revelations keep on coming but the action never decelerates.

Harriet Klausner