I'm not entirely sure about the plot of this book. A wizard wants to summon a person from this world, and succeeds. We don't know why, although we are told he eventually must kill the person he summons. But I read something of a quarter of the book, and I still had no idea...
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I'm not entirely sure about the plot of this book. A wizard wants to summon a person from this world, and succeeds. We don't know why, although we are told he eventually must kill the person he summons. But I read something of a quarter of the book, and I still had no idea whether he was a villain or a good guy willing to do anything to save the world, or what.
As for the summoned girl? She is the reason I could read no more. Okay, so she was in the process of transferring colleges, to France. Okay, so she doesn't know much about France, despite studying the language for five years. But... well, remember how I mentioned I read a quarter of the way through the book? She still thought she was in France! After eighty pages and a week story-time, I just couldn't take it any more. Every little thing that was odd, in a small way or large, was written off as either a personal quirk or something due to being in Europe. No chain stores, lack of real paper like she knows, and some odd colloquialisms? Well, she is in a foreign country, they do things different here. Lack of electricity or cars? It must be one of those old-style schools, or something. She walks directly from the airport onto campus, and can't see the airport when she looks back? Well, who knows how the town is set up; she must have been mistaken which road she entered from. She doesn't even realize it when she can't read what other people write, because it's a different alphabet. I'm sorry, Allie, but after five years you should be able to recognize that French uses pretty much the same alphabet English does, no matter how little you paid attention in class.
She asks few questions for clarification. Those few times she says she doesn't understand what people are talking about are brushed off by people too intent on speaking or doing something. And the one time she sits someone down and demands an explanation and damn how silly her questions seem, she thinks her friend is explaining some game or cult, and he thinks she is asking these ridiculous questions as part of a class project (oh, I didn't mention that she was summoned to a magical university town). So she takes what he says with a grain of salt, and he doesn't think all that much of her asking at all.
It gets infuriating after a while to watch the author connive so damn hard to keep everyone ignorant of what is going on. I just couldn't take it anymore, and stopped.
