Customer Reviews

Trick of the Eye

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Contrary to what seems to be popular beleif, I enjoyed this book very much. I found the writing style an intriguing change from the books I've been reading lately. Many authors present good plotlines with mediocre writing, or mediocre plotlines with mediocre writing. When I picked up Trick of the Eye and read the first page, I was blown away. Here, FINALLY, was an author who actually forced me to think.

In this book,twelve-year-old Richard is a socially handicapped boy in eighteenth or nineteenth century England who can converse with paintings. Upon talking with the characters in a painting of a farm, which is in his dining room, he is caught up in a mystery that he knows he has to solve, without quite knowing why. The reader literally learns while Richard remembers the events nine years ago which made him who he is today.

I appreciated the symbolism in the book a great deal, and while Richard's memory itself was rather cliched, it provided an interesting and surprising background to the whole story. Those of you who found the writing tiring, maybe you should go pick up a book with mediocre writing style that doesn't challenge your mind at all. Don't complain because you actually had to think.

A book for older teenagers or adults, with an intricate plot that requires attention to detail. That being said, it's a rewarding read, emotionally rich; and the reader is rewarded with a shattering conclusion. I particularly loved the protagonist, whose psychological growth unfolds as the plot progresses. Highly recommended.

I was attracted to the cover of this book because it reminded me of "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" which was a book I loved. Unfortunately this book was nothing like that one, except that they both involve paintings.
This book was like reading one long therapy session. It follows the journey of 12-year-old Richard as he struggles to remember something that has happened in his past. He is able to communicate with characters in paintings and they give him clues to follow as he tries to track down one particular painting that will be able to answer all his questions. It appears to be set in England maybe in the late 1800's or early 1900's, and he is a very polite and proper young man.
I found this book very difficult to get through. For one thing, the author uses a lot of incomplete sentences (especially when the painting characters are talking) in an attempt, I think, to create suspense. The thoughts are never fully disclosed, but instead of being intrigued, I was frustrated. I could tell early on that the boy was going to have to remember something painful from his past and I even tried to rationalize that a therapist was showing him various paintings to get him to relate his feelings and remember the event, or that he was mentally ill and was imagining talking to the characters in these paintings. But I was wrong. He apparently was really conversing with them as they also able to relate their feelings when this horrible event took place.
The majority of the book is Richard's quest to find the essential painting. The final two chapters are actually the story. It wraps up the entire "mystery" cleanly and we presume that Richard will now be "healed" and no longer bothered by unexplained nightmares.
The entire book is very innocent and clean up until these final chapters where we discover some mature themes have occurred, and that all the essential paintings were in the same room when these events happened. The concept sounds great, but unfortunately I found the author's writing and style to be lacking and he just didn't achieve that story that could have been very intriguing.

I must say that I absolutely hated this story. I describe this book with three words and these words are...pointless and confusing. Trick of the Eye is extremely slow for the first 80 pages and then after that the story gets so mixed up and confusing that you can't understand it. This book was so confusing I don't even know what the story is really about. And as and ending note, I would like to say that the first 80 pages could have been written in eight!!