Ellies life seems to be going as normally as possible, until an intimidating and odd older woman begins to seduce her asexual best friend Kevin. That, plus an increasing number of unexpected encounters with Mark, an enigmatic and handsome day student, opens Ellie up to the frightening world of Maori folklore. An ambitious group of Maori faeries are conspiring for their chance at immortality, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives, and Ellie, Mark, and their friends must use what little theyve learned about the creatures to stop them before all of New Zealand is destroyed forever.
While certainly different from most speculative YA fiction out there, GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD did not give me the connectivity that I always require from an enjoyable reading experience. For me, it was an ambitious debut novel that was successful in the details of YA originality but missed most of the larger essentials of storytelling.
The things I appreciated about this book were mostly, sadly, superficial, at least when it comes to my criteria for liking a book. I appreciated that Ellie did not have the physical features of a typical YA protagonist. She is instead tall, big-boned, and skilled in tae kwon do. The books concept is also refreshing, featuring New Zealand mythology instead of more well-known European inspirations.
Beyond these things, however, there was much that frustrated me. The book seemed to rely on an unseeming and awkward chain of events in order to present information and move the plot along. Good stories dont feel forced: they flow from scene to scene nearly unnoticed, and readers glean information effortlessly. GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD, however, felt to me like a bunch of scenes strung together to give us the painfully slow reveal of the storys fantastical element. Most of the things in this book just felt very disconnected from one another, like puzzle pieces that look great individually, but do not fit together.
Still, this book has received a lot of praise and even some highly coveted YA lit awards. Perhaps it is my demand for great storytelling over unique concepts that made this book miss its mark with me. Perhaps you will love it. Theres only one way to find out.
I thought this book sounded interesting when it first came out but have been holding off on reading it because of mixed reviews. Well I agree, I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book. The first 200 pages are 3 stars, they are pretty boring, not a lot going on. But the last 150 pages are absolutely awesome.
Ellie is at a boarding school in New Zealand and agrees to help choreograph some of the fight scenes for the play her friend Kevin is in. On her way there she see a woman emerge from the mist; a woman whose eyes are completely black. It ends up that this is the same woman that is starring in the play Ellie is helping with. Then Ellie literally runs into a handsome guy named Mark Nolan and after that she starts seeing things. Mark is wrapped up in something mysterious and Ellie is about to be pulled into the melee. In the end it may be up to Ellie to save the world.
Okay, let's talk about the first 200 pages of the book. It is easy to read and written okay, but not a lot happens. There is a little mystery here and there but mostly the first 200 pages are kind of a yawner. Ellie spends a lot of time complaining about how overweight she is and, when she isn't doing that, she is either complaining about being hungry or snacking on vending machine candy. I had a hard time having a lot of sympathy for her and mostly thought she was kind of pathetic. I didn't really love all the characters that much and about the third time Mark broke into tears because he was over emotional about something it was all I could do to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head.
Now the last 150 pages of the book were pretty much completely different. Ellie is on a quest to save New Zealand. This part of the book is all about the really unique and interesting mythos of New Zealand. Ellie becomes someone to be admired, she grows a backbone and does what needs to be done. This change wasn't really gradual, it isn't something Ellie grows into, it just happens. This part of the book was awesome and I adored it.
The ending is really interesting, but gets a bit confusing at parts, some of it is a bit abstract which I enjoy that in my books because it makes me think harder about what is going on. The book ends well and wraps up the story nicely. Basically I ended up absolutely loving the complexity of the characters and the plot for the last part of the book. I loved it so much that it almost made me forget how boring the first part of the book was. So...basically I guess this book just had really poor pacing.
Overall I ended up liking the book. The beginning was a drag but if you can struggle through the first 200 pages then you are in for a creative, complex, and very interesting treat. Will I read more books by Healey? At this point I am not sure, this book was just too inconsistent, so I would probably wait to read reviews before I picked up another book by her.
Not quite was I thinking it would be but enjoyed it nonetheless. My favorite part of the book would have to be the main character Ellie. She was strong, but not overly strong, funny, smart, kind. She wasn't the drop dead gorgeous type nor the poor pitiful type. I like that and find that those kind of women in tales are hard to find.
The book is loosely based on New Zealand mythology and it was quite fun to read about but hard to follow at times. I sometimes would scan a whole page and realize I wasn't actually taking in the words and would have to go back and read it again. I enjoyed the book enough though that I would read the next book that came out by this author.
