“Do you have darkness inside you?”
I believe I was struck by a YA darkness these past few days. I just can’t seem to enjoy them somehow. I need some light here. Please show me the way.
This book has a great concept, it has SO MUCH POTENTIAL. It’s about the Soria family who have the capacities to perform miracles. What that means you asking? It’s mostly helping the pilgrims to accept their darkness. There’s one Saint who performs the miracle by revealing the darkness upon the pilgrim. It can take a particular form depending on the person. You can have a girl with a never-ending cloud raining upon her and can’t stop crying, a man turned to giant, a pair of twins stuck with serpents coiling around them, a man growing moss on his body.
The trick is, the Soria family member CAN’T help the pilgrims in any single way. That means they can’t talk to them but only pass by and it’s the role of the pilgrim to find a way to heal themselves. Why? Because by helping them, it will trigger a Soria darkness.
«[…]Our own darkness will come down to us, and that is a terrible thing that no one would like to see, worse than any of their darkness.»
So the whole story is around this bunch of Soria kids. Daniel, The Saint of Bicho Raro who fell in love with one of the pilgrim and HELPED HER. His own darkness started to swallow him and he decided to leave in the desert so no one would be hurt. Beatriz, his cousin, a smart girl with no feelings with the help of Joaquin (another of his cousin) aka DJ DIABLO DIABLO (Wtf is that name) and their radio station truck, they will try to find ways to reach Daniel in the desert.
TUN TUN TUN. I was so intrigued by this, I wanted to see what a Soria darkness looks like! And omgad.. it was so.. disappointing. They told a story about a Soria darkness and their darkness was so great they turned into… wood. THAT’S IT MAN. WOOD IS DARKNESS PEOPLE. From the moment I knew this, I was like … wtf Daniel’s darkness going to be right? Transform himself into plastic or wut. I already lost interest at that moment.
The characters were so robotic. I couldn’t get attached. I know they are supposed to be in love or wtv but I didn’t feel any romance going on. It maybe because of the systematic writing like we are reading high sociopath profiling from a computer. She introduced us to the characters in this way :
Here was a thing Tony wanted : to stop having dreams of being laughed at by tiny birds with very long legs
Here was a thing Tony feared : people watching him while he ate.
They didn’t go into details about the act of performing miracles either and it’s such a waste because that concept is soo cool! I love reading about magic and what’s the mechanism under it. The author TRIED to give an explanation by comparing it to radio waves but it was so try- hard.
I will repeat this as I stated in Origin by Dan Brown and Artemis by Andy Weir: if you want an attempt to do a science explanation, please do it right at least.
She tried to insert some science notions here and there and it bothers me because it was explained so prejudicially and inaccurately. My neuroscience ass couldn’t take it.
«Here are the things that happen when rage overtakes you: First, your blood pressure begins to tick upward, every escalating beat of your heart punching angrily against the walls that contain it. Your muscles tense, fisting in preparation for action. »
For God’s sake, there’s a reason why there are steps and orders to this mechanism. The logic behind it is important. Science 101:
- When rage takeover is the fight response which means the first step that triggers it is A SIGNAL FROM THE ENVIRONMENT
- Then, the brain processes the stimuli via the agmydala and hypothalamus will trigger the ACTH (the pituitary gland who secreted the Adrenocorticotropic hormone responsible of adrenalin release in our system
- The adrenalin is then responsible to influence our physiological changes such as : high blood pressure, in creasing heart race, etc.
I might have to start a new series of discussion post : Everything Wrong with YA in terms of science representation or something LOL
Here’s a little recap for those who are way too lazy to read the whole post :
Thank you to Scholastic for giving me a free hardcover copy in exchange for a review!
P.S: We also had our first snow in Montreal this morning!! 😀
Okay, I have to be honest, I’m really not a scientist, but that was very interesting- hehe I’d love to read that series lol 😉 Awesome review! (even if the book was disappointing 😉 )
My Dark Theories 
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