| Title | : | The Whatnot (The Peculiar, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 |
| Publication | : | First published September 24, 2013 |
"Oh, the Sly King, the Sly King, in his towers of ash and wind."
Pikey Thomas doesn’t know how or why he can see the changeling girl. But there she is. Not in the cold, muddy London neighborhood where Pikey lives. Instead, she’s walking through the trees and snow of the
enchanted Old Country or, later, racing through an opulent hall. She’s pale and small, and she has branches growing out of her head. Her name
is Henrietta Kettle.
Pikey’s vision, it turns out, is worth something.
Worth something to Hettie’s brother—a brave adventurer named Bartholomew Kettle. Worth something to the nobleman who protects him. And Pikey is not above bartering—Pikey will do almost anything to escape his past; he’ll do almost anything for a life worth living.
The faeries—save for a mysterious sylph and a mischievous cobble faery or two— have been chased out of London. They’ve all gone north. The army is heading north, too. So Pikey and Bartholomew follow, collecting information, piecing
together clues, searching for the doorway that will lead them to Hettie.
The Whatnot (The Peculiar, #2) Reviews
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"You-hoo, toodeloo, Mi-Ma-Mister Mu-Mo-Magic!"
"What is it now, Cuteness?" asked the concept of Magic.
"Do-ho you wanna hug? It's free today-yay!"
"Really? Gods no!"
"Hm, may-hay-be tomorrow? I think it's going to be free then, too-toodeloo. Oh, and you have a vo-va-visitor."
"Couldn't you have started with that? Who is it?" asked Magic.
"It's me! Do you remember me?" asked the stranger.
"I have no idea," said Magic.
"I give you a few hints. Think of me as taller, green hair, longer. Different eye color as well, 20 pounds heavier, a fake beard and a top hat. We worked together on "The Whatnot"! said the stranger.
"Oh shoot, you're the concept of Imagination. You always reinvent yourself," said Magic.
"Imagine that! So, what did you think of my work in "The Whatnot"?" asked Imagination.
"It was truly something. I have to admit. Lots of great ideas, the whole society in the old country, some very interesting new characters. I really loved your work in the book," said Magic.
"Well, thank you. So what are we doing now?" asked Imagination.
"I think we have to wait for Stefan Bachmann to write a new book. I think he's already working on something. Fingers crossed that we're in it again," said Magic.
"I bet on it! So, in the mean time. Wanna try out something new? Maybe give a hug to Cuteness. I heard they're free today," said Imagination.
"Damn it, I'm always late, but I was so good in this book, too!" said the concept of Ending. -
I gave young Mr.Bachmann's first book three stars because, like most readers, I was amazed at his evocative descriptions, masterful dialogue and mature style. I would have rated it higher but the plot was thin. I was hoping that in the follow up he would have mastered some of the finer points of plotting, but sadly this story is even weaker. All the fireworks of evocative language and description can not compensate for a story where even the author seems to have no idea what should happen next.
A good plot needs to develop tension, but the tension here never really builds until the last fifty pages. Stuff happens, but most of it is superfluous to advancing the story. Characters act with no explicable motivation (here I am thinking of the Faerie Butler) except that something has to happen to fill up the pages.
There are also problems with, to borrow a phrase from film, continuity. For example character "A" will dash across a snow-covered field, leaving character "B" behind, however in the very next sentence "A" is racing to catch up to "B" who has somehow managed to get ahead. A door that was on the north side of a room miraculously seems to have jumped to the opposite side when a character needs to exit through the door she came in through, but the way is now blocked. In short Bachmann take lazy short-cuts and hopes no one will notice. Didn't anyone edit this thing?
The whole experience was, for me, what I would imagine sitting through an eight hour performance by Cirque du Soleil would be like. For the first hour I'b be dazzled by the tricks and pretty costumes. By hour three it would be tired and pointless. By hour four I'd want to leave and go drink bourbon in a bar somewhere, and oh, sweet Jesus, the book is only half done!
The one redeeming thing is that it ended in such a way that Mr.Bachmann does not have to write any more books in the series. He can end it here and I hope he shows the good sense to do so. -
4.5 Sterne für den Abschluss der Dilogie - etwas schwächer als Band 1, aber die originellen Ideen und der Schreibstil sind wirklich großartig! ♥
Spoiler zu Band 1!
Mit dem ersten Band hat mich der noch sehr junge Autor total begeistern können und ich war gespannt, wie es mit Bartholomew und Mr. Jelliby weitergeht. Ich war im ersten Moment ein bisschen enttäuscht, dass dieses Mal anfangs andere Protagonisten im Mittelpunkt stehen. Das war mutig gemacht und auch überraschend, ist aber nach kurzer Gewöhnung auf jeden Fall
Im Fokus steht hier Pikey, ein Waisenjunge aus London, der eine extrem unschöne Begegnung mit einer mächtigen Fee hatte. Seine Erinnungen daran sind allerdings verblasst, aber die Fee hat ihm etwas gestohlen, das noch eine sehr wichtige Rolle spielen wird. Hier muss ich wirklich nochmal betonen, auf was für grandiose Ideen Stefan Bachmann gekommen ist, denn wie auch im ersten Band gibt es wieder eine Menge origineller und verblüffender Details. Sie machen diese Welt grausam und brutal, aber auch lebendig und zu einer abgefahrenen und realistischen Bühne, auf welcher die Figuren immer wieder um ihr Überleben kämpfen müssen.
Bartholomew taucht leider erst ab der Hälfte des Bandes auf und die Suche nach seiner Schwester hat ihn mit der Zeit doch sehr überspannt und ja, besessen gemacht. Seine Angst, zu spät zu kommen, ist aber durchaus berechtigt, denn Hettie hat keinen einfachen Weg vor sich.
Durch das Portal ins Feenland verbannt muss sie mit gehässigen, gruseligen Kreaturen zurechtkommen - und das Bild, das der Autor hier von den Feen zeichnet, ist unglaublich eindringlich und alles andere als zart und verspielt. Bzw. verspielt könnte man es nennen, wenn man noch Grausamkeit und Tücke dazu packt. Auch das Aussehen und die Beschreibungen bestechen mit treffenden Metaphern, die mir völlig neu waren und die das ganze auf allen Ebenen anschaulich gemacht haben.
Ich kann da nicht genug davon schwärmen, weil wie er das beschreibt, grade wenn man auch sein Alter berücksichtigt, ist wirklich bewundernswert!
Die Botschaften hier klingen auch wieder gut verständlich durch, gerade auch für junge Leser: Pickey, den Waisenjungen, bringt seine Hilfsbereitschaft von einem Schlamassel ins andere, und auch wenn er selbst nur endlich einfach einmal etwas mehr haben möchte als nichts, hat er immer auch das Gute für andere im Blick. Nicht aufgeben, die Hoffnung nicht verlieren - auch Hettie ist davon geprägt und man sieht hier sehr schön: wie viel Schlimmes auch im Leben passiert, alles hat seine Gründe und führt uns meist auf einen Weg, der vielleicht auch etwas positives bringt. Zumindest macht es uns zu dem Menschen, der wir heute sind.
© Aleshanee
Weltenwanderer -
Okay, I need this book. I'm in it. Like seriously. Though it is a SUPER minor character...but still. >3< If you see an "Ash-Yandere-Ley" in the book....aha. You found me. I'll feel shit ass bad if all the reviews come back as "wtf was that "Ash-Yandere-Ley" thing?! Was Stefan trying to be cool or something?!" Guys, not his fault. This was forced upon his poor lil' soul. Sorry Stefan in advance if anything bad happens because of me; I love you. :3
Need. kbai. -
Ein toller Abschluss dieses zwei Teilers. Mir hat es viel Spaß gemacht noch tiefer in diese Welt eintauchen zu können. Dennoch fand ich es ein bisschen schwächer als den ersten Teil.
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"A tower of blood," she sang to a wavering, sliding tune. "A tower of blood and a tower of bone. A tower of ash and a tower of stone. Who's at the top of them, who's in the dark? Who climbs the stairs without leaving a mark?"
Stefan Bachmann did it again! He created an extremely intriguing and fantastical world that kept me glued to my seat for days. Not only did I get to fall in love with his old characters again from the first book in The Peculiar series, but I also had the opportunity to fall in love and became attached to new ones. By introducing fresh people, he brought together an even greater story. (However, I did wish that I could have heard from Mr. Jelliby a tad bit more.) Full of magic, fantasy, and a great plot, this book created a fabulous experience that included what it means to hope and persevere for what you love and believe in. I was extremely pleased with this installment and have decided that I enjoyed it just the same, if not more, than the first book, "The Peculiar". The ending was quite satisfying with, what I considered to be, a happy and content closing. (I love this series so much that I wish another book would be written!)
The Story's Plot:
Years after Bartholomew's sister, Hettie, became stuck in the Old Country, a quick trip to a prison on his never ending journey to find her reveals a young street boy named Pikey who claims to have seen his missing sister. Touched with his faery eye, Pikey has glimpsed this changeling girl but for only short periods of time. Desperate to escape his miserable cell, he tells Bartholomew that he can see her again. This promise gets him a chance at freedom, that is if he can still tell Bartholomew about his visions with his branch haired sister. The only problem is that he cannot necessarily see her when he wants to. It's sudden and unexpected. However, this does not stop Pikey from telling him that he can do as he's asked.
Hettie, while being stuck in the Old Country, is continually trying to survive in a strange and horrid land. Suddenly and against her will, Hettie is taken in by the persistent Piscaltine, a strange woman who claims she just wants a friend. Hettie goes on an incredible journey to try to find her inner strength and beauty, even though she is surrounded by faeries who call her ugly, stupid, and useless.
Consistently switching between Hettie's side of the story and Pikey and Bartholomew's, we get an equal part of adventure and suspense between all the characters. The two boys try so hard to find a door into the Old Country between the lies and and deceit, troubles and worries, and Hettie attempts to believe in her brother who promised to rescue her, and she hopes to find a way out of the Old Country.
I strongly advise anyone who read the first book to finish the series. You will not be disappointed!
"Why d'you believe the bad things? I don't care if you hate me and if you leave me behind, but you can't GIVE UP!"
-Pikey
You can read this review and others like it at
http://knightingalereviews.blogspot.com
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http://knightingalereviews.blogspot.c... -
Was ein toller zweiter Band! Die Erzählstimme war trotz der Kindlichkeit, die oft anklang (was aber ob der jungen Charaktere vollkommen in Ordnung ist), meist sehr düster. Keiner der drei Hauptcharaktere hatte es je einfach und ich flog einfach nur durch die Seiten, weil Richard Bachmann einen ganz besonderen Stil hat.
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I devoured the first part of this series within days. The first book ends on a suspenseful cliffhanger, so I practically had no other choice than to read the second part as well. All in all, it was a decent continuation of the story, showing new facettes of the author's fantasy mastermind.
Especially in comparison to the first, very promising part, this book occasionally showed a lack of consistent suspense over lengthy passages. What most disappointed me personally though was the ending, that, after a long and complicated build up, collapsed into an overly simplistic happy end, leaving the reader with unanswered questions and general dissatisfaction.
Bachmann set the bar incredibly high, going through a two part novel with thousands of twists and turns that captivate and mesmerize. In my opinion, this bar was missed by quite a bit when it came to wrapping up an enormous plot in a short and seemingly rushed ending. -
Hettie befindet sich im Alten Land und stampft seit Tagen durch den Schnee auf eine Hütte zu, die einfach nicht näher kommen will. Ihre Gedanken kreisen um ihren Bruder Bartholemew. So verbringt sie Jahre dort, auch wenn sich alles nur wie Minuten für sie anfühlt. Sie weiß, dass sie von großer Wichtigkeit für die Feen ist, denn ihre Macht als Mischlingswesen könnte den Feen helfen, endgültig das Alte Land zu verlassen. Währenddessen versucht Bartholemew alles, um Hettie aus den Klauen der Feen zu befreien und stößt dabei auf Pikey, einem einäugigen Straßenjungen, der die Fähigkeit hat, Visionen von Hettie zu empfangen. Und so machen sich die beiden auf ins Alte Land, stoßen aber unterwegs auf Hindernisse, die ihre Mission zum Scheitern verurteilen.
Nach dem etwas gewöhnungsbedürftigen ersten Teil „Die Seltsamen“ wollte ich aber schon wissen, wie es denn mit Bartholemew, Hettie und den durchtriebenen Feenwesen denn weitergeht.
Der zweite Band schließt fast nahtlos an das Ende des ersten Teils an. Obwohl Jahre vergangen sind, ist es doch so, als wäre keine Zeit vergangen, zumindest ist es so in der Feenwelt, in der sich Hettie nun aufhält.
Was mir diesmal sehr gut gefallen hat, ist die düstere Stimmung, die im Alten Land herrscht. Feen sind sehr wandelbare Geschöpfe, im einen Moment zuckersüß, im anderen herrschsüchtig, hinterhältig und bestimmend. Hettie muss dies am eigenen Leib erfahren und merkt bald, dass es besser ist, zu machen, was die Feen sagen und sich still und heimlich einen Plan auszuarbeiten, um zu fliehen.
Bartholemew taucht erst ziemlich spät in der Geschichte auf und es wird erstmal Bezug genommen auf Pikey, einer neu eingeführten Figur. Pikey hat die Möglichkeit mit seinem sog. „umwölkten Auge“ Visionen aus dem Alten Land und damit von Hettie zu empfangen. Dies macht ihn für Bartholemew damit sehr wichtig und man merkt, wie im Laufe ihrer Abenteuer auch eine richtige Freundschaft entsteht. Dies fand ich sehr wichtig, gerade für Pikey, der als Straßenjunge schon so einiges erlebt hat, dass Kinder eigentlich gar nicht erleben sollen. Er findet Halt bei Bartholemew und kehrt so zu einem normalen Leben zurück, wenn man ein Leben in einem von Dampfmaschinen betriebenen und mit Mischlingswesen bevölkerten London als normal bezeichnen kann.
Zuerst tut sich nicht sehr viel in der Geschichte und so plätschert erst mal alles vor sich hin. Mir kam es sehr lange vor, bis überhaupt mal etwas geschah und dies nahm mir natürlich auch etwas die Lust am Lesen. Doch ist man über die erste Hälfte des Buches hinaus, schlagen die Ereignisse Purzelbäume und der Showdown beginnt.
Aber wieder ist das Glück den Charakteren zu oft hold, wie auch schon im ersten Teil „Die Seltsamen“.
Trotzdem geht eine kleine Faszination von der Geschichte aus. Ich vermute, dass diese Faszination bei mir von dem sehr düsteren Faden ausgeht, der sich durch alles zieht. Es scheint keine Freude zu geben, alles ist fast ohne Emotionen ausgestattet und das Augenmerk liegt auch darauf, diesen Eindruck bis zum Schluss durchzuhalten.
Ich weiß nicht so recht, was ich nun genau von dieser Diologie halten soll. Einerseits würde ich natürlich weitere Abenteuer von Bartholemew, Hettie und Pikey lesen, doch andererseits bin doch froh, die beiden Bücher abgeschlossen zu haben.
Fazit:
Eine Diologie, die ich so vorher noch nicht gelesen habe. Fantasy, Endzeitszenario und Steampunk in einer Mischung, die für micht nicht einzuschätzen ist. -
Originally posted
here at Random Musings of a Bibliophile.
I enjoyed The Peculiar by Stephen Bachmann when it came out last year (my review). MG Steampunk is such a rare thing and the world building in this one is so well done. I was eager to read the sequel, The Whatnot, and excited when I received an e-galley.
The world building is again the greatest strength of this novel. Bachmann has created two vivid and separate worlds. In The Peculiar we were concerned mostly with the alternate England. This story flashes between that world and the Old Country, the world of the faerie. In England war has begun between mortals and faerie. Peculiars and fae alike are being rounded up and put in prison. Very few places are safe. In the Old Country the King is working on a plan to take over England and use it for his own purposes. Bachmann built up the King quite a lot. He is whispered of by the faeries in England, who fear him. He is whispered about by the faeries in the Old Country, who fear him. While he is most definitely a to-be-feared-villain, he was a little too predictable to make me worry over him so much. Still, the creatures he controls are frightening. I also enjoy the picture Bachmann paints of the Sidhe. He makes them so perfectly ruthless, uncaring, unpredictable, and changeable.
As the story focuses on two places, it also focuses on two different characters. One is a character familiar from the previous book, Hettie, who is not in the Old Country. Hettie who is far more resourceful and cunning than was seen in the first book. I thoroughly enjoyed her and how she thought out her problems. She was expecting Bartholomew to come rescue her and her goal was to survive in the meantime. That is a high reaching goal for a changeling navigating the world ruled by the Sidhe and evil King bent on destruction. It was interesting seeing her mind work. In England the story focuses on a new character by the name of Pikey. Pikey has endured terrible things at the hands of the faeries and yet he isn't completely repulsed by them. He is a gutter rat and not the sharpest knife in the drawer at times, but he has is a strong sense of honor and a whole lot of courage. As in the first book it was hard for me to connect with the characters because of the shifting perspectives and the newness of Pikey in a plot so full of action. Bartholomew doesn't appear until halfway through the book and Jelliby is barely in it at all. Bartholomew is very much changed but the reader gets no real sense of how this change came about as it is not seen happening. This frustrated me as a reader, but that is because I'm a character reader.
Anyone who has read The Peculiar will want to read the continued adventures of this delightful alternate Victorian world, particularly if you are a reader who enjoys creative world building and fast paced twisting plots.
I read an e-galley provided by the publisher, Greenwillow Books, made available on Edelweiss. The Whatnot is on sale now. -
"The city became a beast after dark; the streets were its throats and the graveyards were its bellies, and ever since things had started going rotten between the English and the faeries the beast had gotten hungrier."
Even in an alternate universe where the plot of The Whatnot was lacking, or its world didn't enthrall, Stefan Bachmann's bewildering mastery of prose would still make his second novel worth a read. I'm sure he's sick to death of people mentioning his age by now, but that's what makes his excellence so baffling. It isn't that he's good for a teenager (well, former teenager now), it's that he's good for a human being. Spectacular, even. One of my favorite current writers period, and if were in his forties he still would be. If anybody somehow doubted Bachmann's skill after The Pecular, his magnificent debut, then The Whatnot will put such worries to rest. This is no novelty. Like Gordon Korman, Stephen Crane and Mary Shelley before him, youth has little to do with his success.
Fortunately for us, the plot is not lacking, and Bachmann's world doesn't just enthrall but astounds: both brilliantly blend bitter truths of life in the nineteenth century British underclass with the wonder and mystery of the Fae. As in The Peculiar, Bachmann's creatures veer toward the darker side of whimsical, their violent capriciousness and alien morality in keeping with more traditional depictions of faeries (think Puck, not Tinkerbell).
The story follows the lead of its unpredictable denizens, twisting through two distinct plots connected by a street boy's stolen eye. An intentionally vague time lapse between The Peculiar and The Whatnot (as well as differing flows of time between England and the magical Old Country) further lends to novel's mysterious feel, as does the conspicuous initial absence of The Peculiar's eponymous protagonist, the naive but stouthearted Bartholomew Kettle.
But yes, to top it all off, Bachmann's prose sets The Whatnot apart from its contemporaries. There are many fantastic stories in middle grade and young adult these days, but few are written with such unpretentious, utterly un-purple beauty. I wish he would narrate my life. Or at least my commute.
Seriously. Read this book. -
This book started out interesting, with viewpoints from several people, one of which is a homeless abandoned child in London, England, in the 1850s. This is 12-year-old (or so) Pikey, so called because he's a foreigner. Then there is Barthy, a youngster a little older than Pikey, searching for his missing sister. The sister is Hettie, kidnapped by faeries into their world and held as an interesting creature.
The story revolves around finding Hettie and returning her home, but also includes elements of steam punk in the clockwork beetles, android faeries, and other oddities. There was magic and science mixed together to create poisons transported by clockwork to move in both directions between faerie and the world of man.
Together this should have been an awe inspiring story as the determined brother searches for his missing sister with the help of a boy who can see into faerie. But it sizzled and spat and sat there, page after page, until finally I was reading simply to see if it ever ended.
The ending was decent, but pulled too much too late of a possible really good story.
Not recommended. -
This book was infinitely better than the 1st in this dulogy.
The pacing , writing style has improved a lot , character development also happened after 139 pages into this .
The only down flaw is probably the lacklustre villain , the author failed to provide a reason behind his actions .
I can see that this author have a talent and I should probably go easy on him considering that this dulogy is his debut novels .
But I really hated this and I sighed with relief when I saw THE END , I suppose that makes my feeling clear about this book.
Let's hope my next read will be better :/
UPDATE;
unhauled in the month of June 2017 -
liked this more than the first one! it was as magical as I expected and also fast paced. I love Hettie and Pickey Thomas they're both such adorable and strong characters. was a little bit sad tho that Mr Jelliby wasn't really in this one anymore. 4/5 stars
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A beautiful book really! Some parts where a bit confusing and I didn't know very well what was happening.But I kept reading.The end brought me all the feels: so,so beautiful!
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Ziemlich verwirrend geschrieben. Man hat das Gefühl, dass einige wichtige Stellen einfach fehlen oder übersprungen werden. Der Vorgänger war viel besser.
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Schwanke noch zwischen 3 und 4 Sternen, wenn ich könnte, würde ich 3,5 geben.
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The back of The Whatnot declares it to be a "companion" to
The Peculiar\, which is a reasonable definition as there's sufficient plot resolution in The Peculiar that this doesn't really count as a sequel. That said, I'd not read The Whatnot without first reading The Peculiar if the option is available as the events chronicled in The Whatnot occur directly after those of The Peculiar.
It's hard to say anything about Whatnot without essentially spoiling The Peculiar so, be warned, Peculiar spoilers start...now.
Once again, we dive back into the world of a London half-populated with not-particularly-nice faeires (kinda like the creatures from
The Spiderwick Chronicles now that I think about it). As a result of the events that culminated in The Peculiar, London has been forcibly emptied of faerie folks, they've been pushed North and corralled, and the humans are on a war-footing as faerie/human tensions escalate out of control.
Our two changelings from The Peculiar are the main protaganists: Hettie, the younger sister, saved London (the world?) by refusing to allow Mr. Lickerish's gate to open, sacrificing herself by jumping back through the gate into the Old Country and we start out with her and Lickerish's Butler stranded in Deep Winter in faerie land. Hettie *knows* that Barthie (her brother) will rescue her, she just needs to find a way to keep herself alive and findable until then. The other side of the story is told from Earth, split between the search that Bartholemew (who's very much landed on his feet) has launched and a street urchin by the name of Pikey who's had an unfortunate run-in with the faerie folk.
The plot is slowly ravelled together from these various perspectives and it's a very similar kind of tale to The Peculiar. I found the Whatnot to be slightly more polished from a writing perspective than The Peculiar, but it still has some very odd plot points that just...happen, for no really conceivable reason. It's not possible to go into these without wrecking the story but they're not subtle, you'll notice when you get to them. These books both received a lot of attention for their impressive prose but I wasn't particularly impressed. It's not that it was particularly grating, but after all of the carry-on I was expecting something
Gormenghast-like and it wasn't that. It's not a crude "Hey look, I've got a thesaurus!" kind of deal, there is some nice descriptive work but that's something I would expect from a book :)
All in all, I think that this isn't a bad tale, definitely worth reading if you read the Peculiar and would appreciate some closure, but I'm not sure that I'd specifically recommend either of these books to anyone. They're not bad, but they're not particularly great either. As Goodreads would put it "it was OK" :) -
Von zwei Welten
Seit seine Schwester Hettie in der Alten Welt verschwunden ist, sucht ihr Bruder Bartholomew nach ihr. Im London der Dampfmaschinen wandert gleichzeitig Pikey Thomas umher, der Junge mit dem sehenden Auge. Mit diesem Auge kann er in die Alte Welt schauen und manchmal sieht er Hettie. Sie streckt die Hand nach ihm aus und kann ihn nicht erreichen. Doch Pikeys Leben ist hart, meist hat er nicht einmal genug zu essen und dann klaut er sich seine Tagesration zusammen. Natürlich fällt er auch wegen seiner Augenklappe auf, neugierige Gassenjungen wollen sehen, was darunter ist. Auf der Flucht kann Pikeys mitleidiges Herz es nicht ertragen, dass eine verletzte Fee Schmerzen leidet. Gutmütig renkt er ihren Flügel wieder ein. Als er die Belohnung, die sie ihm übergibt, im Pfandhaus versetzen will, landet er als Dieb im Gefängnis.
Bereits in seiner ersten Geschichte um Hettie und Bartholomew hat der Autor Stefan Bachmann seine Leser in seine Welten entführt. Eine Art England, in dem es Portale in die alte Feenwelt gibt. In diesem zweiten Band setzt Bartholomew die Suche nach seiner Schwester fort, die in die Alte Welt entführt wurde. Schon seit Jahren ist er erfolglos unterwegs. Erst seine Bekanntschaft mit Pikey lässt neue Hoffnung aufkommen, denn durch sein verletztes Auge sieht dieser Hettie in ihrer Gefangenschaft. Gemeinsam machen sich die beiden Jungen auf die Suche nicht nur, um Hettie zu finden, sondern auch um ihre Welt zu retten.
Obwohl dieser Roman für Kinder und Jugendliche geschrieben wurde, können sich auch Erwachsene in die Geschichte versenken. Mit Hettie ergeben sich Wanderungen durch die seltsame Feenwelt, die genauso dem Untergang geweiht scheint wie ein fast ebenso seltsames London. Bartholomew und Pikey suchen den Übergang in die Feenwelt, um Hettie zu befreien. Ihren mühsamen Weg begleitet man gefesselt. Mit manchmal recht brutalen Worten werden die mitunter grausamen Spielchen geschildert, die hier Feenwesen untereinander oder auch mit den Menschen treiben. Sehr düster wirken die gezeichneten Bilder, alles scheint auf eine Katastrophe hinauszulaufen, vor der es kein Entrinnen gibt. Dennoch hofft man auf eine letzte Wendung zum Guten und klebt förmlich an den Seiten, auf denen es dem Finale entgegen geht. Die Mischung aus Steampunk und Fantasy ist hier sehr gelungen und macht diesen Besuch in die Anderswelt zu einem echten Erlebnis. -
While I don't think I enjoyed this book quite as much as the first, it was still a very well-written book and it did bring me to tears near the end. Hettie is a fantastic character, and I felt so bad for everything that she, Bartholomew, and Pikey had to go through in this story. Bachmann's writing was beautiful and tragic and heart-wrenching, painting each scene and creating a fantastic atmosphere that suits the story.
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So here this goes....I have been putting off reviewing this book, because I didn't want to. I was so disappointed by the second installment of The Peculiar series. If the first book hadn't knocked my socks off, I might have thought this was a better book, but I know what Bachmann is capable of. I know that the characters can be deeper, crisper, more descriptive, the settings can be clearer and more engaging, but I made it to the end of this book and like a bad relationship, I was a bit cut up about it ending, but in the end I knew it was for the best. I don't feel like I need to run out and get the next book (even though I would have to wait), but I can wait and see some reviews and see if Bachmann has redeemed himself by putting a bit more work into the third story.
This was not the worst book I read this summer, but did not meet my expectations. -
Many years have passed since Barthy's sister Hettie opened the portal and disappeared into the fairy world. Her Brother Barthy and a poor outcast with a special gift named Pickey are now on their journey of finding Hettie.
Meanwhile, Hettie is trapped in the fairy world where she fights for survival with gruesome creatures and, in between, discovers a whole new side to her.
Is she able to stop the war and make it out alive to be reunited with her brother?
This time again, Stefan Bachmann took me away into a vivid world full of wonders and nightmares.
His writing style is unique and detail-loving and I feel like, every creature in this book has a special place in his heart. I liked the first part of it more, however, I must say that the overall atmosphere in this book matched the topic very well. It was very eerie and unique. -
I read this in German. Usually i prefer to read books in whatever language they were written but this one was translated very well. The story is amazing and full of fantastical creatures. I do have to mention that this is the second one though! I accidentally read it first and many things didnt make sense. But i just finished the first one and now its all clear.
Great books, definitely a recommend! -
Epic!
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Not as good as the first one. Still some great ideas for the storyline. 2.5 points -> 3
