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In Tweestrijd (2010)

by Jenna Blum(Favorite Author)

3.52 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

9022558789 (ISBN13: 9789022560976)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

De Boekerij

review 1: I love prairie storms. It's hard to articulate to someone not from the prairies what's so beautiful about miles of flat land, and overwhelming sky, and the dark clouds that encroach from the horizon. Jenna Blum writes in ways that is so tangent and real and she articulates perfectly the feel of summer road-trips and solo flights and sitting in empty parking of highway motels. You can taste the scenery. I will read this book over and over again for the descriptors alone. A lot of reviewers have mentioned they dislike Charles, and that the book would have benefited without him. I disagree, I think the stormchasing was a secondary plot-point for a very good reason. Having a sibling with bi-polar issues, I thought the descriptions of Charles manic episodes was written bang on.... more Loving brother one day, malevolent force the next. Rarely laid back, you get the sense that he's always spring-loaded. There's an intense current that exists inside many people with 'mood' disorders, again like a summer storm crackling on the horizon, and I thought this tornado theme was an absolutely perfect metaphor. Blum might have hyped his mood swings a bit more than necessary. I think that a lot of readers who don't have loved ones with mental disorders might not relate to how absolutely hard it is for Karena. They might ask, why isn't she tougher? Can't she see that's he playing her? Can't she see that he needs meds? Why doesn't she lose him, he's a jerk. It's not as black and white as that. It's not that easy to cut out your only remaining family. I understand how your life can become irrevocably intertwined with that of a sibling. And medication comes at a great cost, and with my sibling I've seen a complete personality shift. It really does play with how you view the fundamentals of your brain, and whether or not you should dim the lights down. So it was very realistic to see this intense guy integrating holistic remedies into his life, and native philosophies of mental mania, because a lot of people with these disorders do the exact same things, to avoid turning to drugs. Really struck a cord with me. I think Karena did overreact to his rambling journal entries and pinned-up articles on the wall. I know a lot of artists that do the same thing. The person that bothered me the most was the romantic interest, Kevin. On one hand, I liked him immensely. There was just something endearing about this 'loafy' stormchaser always tugging down his shirt like a schoolboy. On the other hand, he irritated the hell out of me. As another review mentioned, there was no reason to call her 'Laredo' every other sentence. How many times do you call somebody by their name during a conversation? The dialogue could have gone a lot smoother had he stopped calling her nicknames every minute. And I found it annoying how he lectured her her all the time. It felt like in every conversation he would hold up a hand and say "whoa, Laredo. Hold up. A, we can't do that, B, etc etc". I get that he's a high school teacher but she's not a student. It was patronizing. He was way too overprotective of her in terms of her relationship with her brother, and at that point I wanted him to butt out. I also understand how he has 'trust' issues, but they've known each other for two weeks, she's not obligated to unload every deep dark secret right away. Aand they started discussing kids names a wee bit early for my liking. Karena was so great away from Kevin, but when she was with him I felt she became a bit meek and pathetic. I think Kevin was written more as a bulletin brief of stormchasing facts, and Blum struggled with integrating him into a natural character. I like the idea of Kevin, but he wasn't well-written, and I couldn't get a good grasp of his character. Also, for the life of me, I can't envision what a "pancake face" looks like. I mean I can, but it's fairly comical. I think the relationships between Karena and both men felt a little forced, which was a shame because an easy solution to that would have been to get rid of them constantly addressing each other (Laredo, K, sistah), having them stop clapping each other on the back, cool it with the lectures, and the interactions would have been much more natural.I make it sound like this book was an awful read. Not at all! Very compelling, engaging story, with realistic people (although unrealistic dynamics), with an incredibly evocative landscape, of which I will read over and over again.
review 2: I wavered between liked it and really liked it. In my mind, it kind of drug a long at points and that is the only reason I held back a star. It was a good book, I went into it with my love of "Those Who Save Us" in my mind. Jenna Blum is VERY good at drawing you into a story line, and for that I will continue reading what ever she writes, HOWEVER, Stormchasers could never compete with that story line. In Stormchasers, Twins are forced to confront a violent accidental death/secret from their past. These twins (Karena and Charles) are also living with/confronting a mental disease that Charles refuses to medicate/treat. Story was well told, it just seemed like a vicious story that seemed to spiral...Interesting story, fun to read though! I particularly liked the last third of the book...like I said, it drug on for a bit!! less

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