RealityBypass

So if you’ve followed our blog you know that we’re fans of Anton Strout and Dead to Me around here.  This year the sequel to Dead to Me, Deader Still was released in February.  I finally sat down and read it while on my trip to Disney…well, sat down, stood in line and read on the plane.

All in all I have very mixed feelings about this book.  I very much like the world that Strout has created and how it overlays modern day New York.  I also like seeing him touch on some of the lesser used powers and legends within his stories.  The use of psychometry makes Simon very different from a lot of UF heroes which is interesting.  The premise of this volume is fun and boils down to:  How to fight evil while on a budget, constrained by red tape and trying to deal with girlfriends and a past come to bite Simon in the butt.  So there is a lot to like, and it did keep me reading to the end.

However, you knew there was going to be a however, I have some big problems with the character progression, or lack there of, in this book.  In Dead to Me, Simon starts out as a well meaning, slightly pathetic rookie, but he learns about trusting his team and trusting his partner and by the end is much less pathetic and has created strong ties with the people around him.  In Deader Still, Simon seems to revert to exactly what he was before.  He argues with everyone he encounters sooner or later, particularly his partner and his girlfriend, often for reasons which make little to no rational sense.  I don’t want to give away plot points in specific, but I was going to strangle both Jane and Simon for being stupidly stubborn and not listening to each other and Connor was next on my list.  There were moments where I felt kinda like it was supernatural 90210 instead of a novel about grownups which was frustrating because of all the things I liked and wanted to like more.

Also, as much as I enjoy Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there were about a million Buffy references in this book and I felt like it weakened the writing.  It’s one thing to toss off a reference and pay homage to a series you like and your audience likes, but when it is continual it becomes old and made me feel like it was a ploy to keep me reading.  To say ’see, my book is like this, so if you like Buffy you should keep reading.’  It wasn’t needed.  The book is strong enough on it’s own merits.

All in all I’m not sorry I read Deader Still and I will read the next one, but I’ll likely borrow it before buying.

~Jana

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Age: Teen, adult

Content: Violence, smoochies, blood drained corpses, giant crabs

Overall: Borrow