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juushikaTitle: Tattoo Girl
Author: Brooke Stevens
Published: New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2001
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 322
Total Page Count: 75,476
Text Number: 222
Read For: recommended by Terri Windling in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection, borrowed from the library
Short Review: A young girl, named Emma, is discovered in a mall after hours, mute, covered in blood, and tattooed with fish scales. Former circus fat lady Lucy adopts her, and the two begin a quest to discover Emma's past. A dark, gritty story with glints of magical realism, Tattoo Girl is primarily a journey of strength through self-acceptance, a strong theme which makes for an equally strong ending. But both characters and antagonists are over-exaggerated, making their struggles unbelievable. Tattoo Girl is still an enjoyable, worthwhile read—but it could have been better. Recommended.
Tattoo Girl is an odd book for me to review. It's well written, dark yet inspiring, with an edge of magic; an intriguing and above-average novel; an all-in-all success. Yet it failed to grab me. One of the book's blurbs is by Francesca Lia Block, and Tattoo Girl shares some similarities to Block's writing: mysterious women with colorful pasts, a gritty world highlighted by magical realism, and a constant theme of self-discovery and self-acceptance. The characters here are freaks, some of them literally so with careers in the circus; their strength lies in their ability to accept themselves as odd and exceptional individuals. As the book continues, self-acceptance evolves into a surprisingly effective theme and the novel ends on a wonderful high note. Only the writing flags a bit: the narrative jumps around and the writing style, while competent, is unremarkable.
Still it's hard to pin down what it was that kept me from loving Tattoo Girl. Despite setting, characters, and the story's strength, I could put the book down for days at a time and never give it a second thought. Perhaps it's that the theme of self-acceptance is so obvious: a little person, a tattooed girl, a fat lady—the characters are literal freaks, and so their search for self-acceptance is too exaggerated to be empathetic. The book is also surprisingly dark, and while its nightmare scenarios are attention-grabbing the excessively evil antagonists make the book's conflicts, and thus the protagonists's victories in them, unbelievable. Had it been toned down a bit, Tattoo Girl may have been less vivid but it would have been more realistic and empathetic, which could only benefit the book's theme. As it is, it's a perfectly readable novel with an unexpectedly successful story, and I enjoyed it and recommend it. But it is not quite all that it could be.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Brooke Stevens
Published: New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2001
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 322
Total Page Count: 75,476
Text Number: 222
Read For: recommended by Terri Windling in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection, borrowed from the library
Short Review: A young girl, named Emma, is discovered in a mall after hours, mute, covered in blood, and tattooed with fish scales. Former circus fat lady Lucy adopts her, and the two begin a quest to discover Emma's past. A dark, gritty story with glints of magical realism, Tattoo Girl is primarily a journey of strength through self-acceptance, a strong theme which makes for an equally strong ending. But both characters and antagonists are over-exaggerated, making their struggles unbelievable. Tattoo Girl is still an enjoyable, worthwhile read—but it could have been better. Recommended.
Tattoo Girl is an odd book for me to review. It's well written, dark yet inspiring, with an edge of magic; an intriguing and above-average novel; an all-in-all success. Yet it failed to grab me. One of the book's blurbs is by Francesca Lia Block, and Tattoo Girl shares some similarities to Block's writing: mysterious women with colorful pasts, a gritty world highlighted by magical realism, and a constant theme of self-discovery and self-acceptance. The characters here are freaks, some of them literally so with careers in the circus; their strength lies in their ability to accept themselves as odd and exceptional individuals. As the book continues, self-acceptance evolves into a surprisingly effective theme and the novel ends on a wonderful high note. Only the writing flags a bit: the narrative jumps around and the writing style, while competent, is unremarkable.
Still it's hard to pin down what it was that kept me from loving Tattoo Girl. Despite setting, characters, and the story's strength, I could put the book down for days at a time and never give it a second thought. Perhaps it's that the theme of self-acceptance is so obvious: a little person, a tattooed girl, a fat lady—the characters are literal freaks, and so their search for self-acceptance is too exaggerated to be empathetic. The book is also surprisingly dark, and while its nightmare scenarios are attention-grabbing the excessively evil antagonists make the book's conflicts, and thus the protagonists's victories in them, unbelievable. Had it been toned down a bit, Tattoo Girl may have been less vivid but it would have been more realistic and empathetic, which could only benefit the book's theme. As it is, it's a perfectly readable novel with an unexpectedly successful story, and I enjoyed it and recommend it. But it is not quite all that it could be.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
