Rate this book

Touchstone (2012)

by Melanie Rawn(Favorite Author)

3.26 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0765323621 (ISBN13: 9780765323620)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Tor Books

series

Glass Thorns

review 1: Not bad, but disappointing nevertheless. The characters are mildly engaging, but not quite enough to shoulder the burden of making the book interesting, and that is a burden they bear. The plot is threadbare, being more a slice-of-life story than anything else, as the theatre troupe's rise to success is presented with so few challenges as to not really constitute a dramatic storyline. The few elements with any suspense are only mildly so and are strewn about with little attention given to them. One is introduced and never dealt with, and another is introduced early on and only dealt with at the very end -- literally on the ending page. While this isn't uncommon with a series, a final page reveal usually has more impact due to being built up more. What we have here is a cli... moreffhanger that has only been elevated to three feet. While I doubt I would hate the sequels, I can't say I find the idea of seeking them out to be particularly compelling.
review 2: It's impossible to overstate how much Melanie Rawn's Sunrunner books meant to me. Which makes me a little afraid to review this book. I'm hoping I missed something. Magic is used for art rather than as a weapon, and therefore there's no killing, which I loved. But the four somewhat shallow boys we follow through the story don't seem anything like the magnificent characters Rawn has written in the past. This is supposed to be a diverse world, which is what I look for. And yet (among other things) all the women described as attractive are blond, which reads white to me (the world is supposed to be diverse in terms of magical races like trolls and faeries and the like - I figured the humans would also be diverse, and that they wouldn't conform to the same stereotypes that we currently have to endure). By far the most disappointing thing for me is that women have no power or freedom, and it's stated very early in the book that there's no reason why - that's just the way it is. Women are on the sidelines in this book. That could be just a matter of taste and preference, but I didn't expect that at all from Rawn, who has written some of the most dynamic, powerful, fascinating, sympathetic female (and male) characters I've ever read. This choice didn't seem to add anything to the story's world at all. And while it's clear that something *may* eventually happen where women get some measure of parity, it didn't happen in this book, and it's certainly not a big focus of four teenage boys who are hopping into and out of as many beds as possible as they tour the country, while being mostly dismissive about any woman they aren't related to or childhood-friends with. I promised myself never again to write a negative review - it just makes me feel guilty. But this is Melanie Rawn, and I love her books, and I'm still hoping that there was nuance I overlooked. So I'm going to read a sample of the second book and go from there. less

Download links for: Touchstone

Advertising