The Eyes of a King (by Catherine Banner)

THE EYES OF A KING
by Catherine Banner
Release date : May 2008

Fifteen-year-old Leo North's prospects in life are limited. He attends military school, lives with his fearful grandmother, and looks after his brother Stirling. He resists his innate powers, because those who demonstrate any sort of magical ability are considered enemies of the state. But when he finds a blank book in the snow, his typical indifference melts away. From the first moment he touches the book, he senses its strange power. Passages start to appear on the pages—revealing family secrets, telling the history of Malonia, and uncovering the story of Ryan and Anna, two teens from a parallel universe. When Leo’s seemingly narrow path takes an unexpected tragic turn, he finds himself on a journey from which he can never really return. And, as he slowly begins to lose touch with reality, Ryan and Anna’s story comes to the forefront. Their idyllic summer romance—seemingly worlds away from Leo—has everything to do with Malonia. (taken from Random House)

MY THOUGHTS : There are times in life where some things make you angry. When you failed doing something. When you were forbidden to do something you were dying to do. But also when you go and see a movie that is so bad you want to call the director to ask him what was going on in his head when he made it. Or when you read a book that doesn't, in your mind, deserve to be called a book.

I am a nice person. I read a lot of books. My job made be become more and more critical, but in a good way. I am not mean. I simply judge a book for what it is. On this blog, even when I'm not a huge fan of a book, I talk about its positive side and try to be fair. My tastes are not everyone's taste.

But this book is, out of all the 300 books I've read so far as a reader, the one that made me the more angry, frustrated and bored all at the same time. I know that sounds harsh. But I couldn't find one single positive thing to say. I browsed through the reviews on the internet, and saw that my thoughts were shared by many readers. Phew, at least I'm not alone! Now, to the review. I will, for this book, write my review as a list. A list of all the things that made my reading laborious and frustrating.

- The narrative is divided into three stories / different narrators, written in three different fonts: Leo, who recounts his experiences in the past (regular font). The book, which tells the parallel story as a third person (font type "manuscript", ouch for my eyes). And Leo's thoughts on what is being told in the main story (normal font in italic). Very confusing, poorly controlled, I found the change of narrative more disturbing than interesting. In addition, the narrative written in the book appears after a while in Leo's dreams and arises sometimes without you knowing where it came from.
- I was lost with the characters: I didn't understand who was who, who was where and why, and I didn't stick with anyone, not even the protagonists. I won't share spoilers, but one major scene that should've been intense and sad didn't move me at all.
- "I started" was repeated a hundred times.
- In the second half of the book, I felt like I had no choice but follow the non-adventures of a young man who is mourning, crying day and night, and regularly fainting. Leo's tears got to my nerves big time.
- I found the dialogues too elaborate, it became tiring.
- We are led to believe that at some point the story that takes place in the parallel world will mingle with that of Leo, but it only happens late, and without being brought up in an interesting way.
- The general themes of death, religion and politics are treated too lightly and simplistically.
- The book could've been way shorter.

I always finish books, even when I have trouble doing so. This time, I wanted to put it down every five minutes. I don't enjoy ranting, but I really needed to share my thoughts on this one. And I would love to have opinions of people who read it and either liked it or disliked it.

Has it ever happened to you to feel angry after reading a book?

To end on a positive note, here is a link to a more positive review. :)