Rook by Sharon Cameron

TL;DR post-apocalyptic Scarlet Pimpernel

(finished 8/14/15)

Oh man, this book was wild. Even more so than the climaxes of each of The Lunar Chronicles books. And I don't compare things to TLC lightly. The entirety of the book felt like facing off against Queen Levana, and if you can keep that tension going strong the entire book, then you are hella. 

Right off the bat, I'm gonna agree that Rook is long. It took me a long time to find my groove with it. The last book I read comparable in size was Teardrop, and that was definitely a fight to finish. It took a while to get a true interest in Rook going, but I ended up spending most of the 14th reading instead of surfing the internet, so that definitely means something. 

I actually really adore the narration. It was 3rd person past omniscient, so it jumped between characters and situations, and the transitions were so cool. They were like movie transitions. I think Rook would actually do really well as a movie in that regard, if they kept them like that. It connected the different scenes / happenings together really well for me. (I also realize that some people could maybe find it tacky. I dunno. I enjoyed it.)

And I honestly thought I would never ever admit this, but there's a good love triangle. I found it really interesting, especially since it's more realistic than most YA where it's the female MC going "oh no, I like these two boys equally, what do" for the entire book. Rook's romance was more complicated than that (and more simple at the same time), and I really liked it. It's not actually a triangle; I just know that's the easiest way to explain what it is, because let's be honest, "love triangle" gets used for every instance of a romantic complication even if the shape is more of a V. (Maybe I should just switch to some form of the phrase "romantic complication" in place of "love triangle". I'm really starting to hate triangles.)

I found all of the characters really interesting. The omniscient narration definitely lets you get really in-depth with a lot of the characters, which also reveals a lot of irony in the plot. (Or just really terrible coincidence. I'm not exactly sure which.) Rene is probably my favorite character. I'm not even entirely sure why. The narration definitely made me sympathize with the characters, even LeBlanc, a lot like Fairest did for me and Queen Levana. I definitely don't agree with LeBlanc, or even Spear for that matter, but it did help to see the world from their eyes. And made their endings more satisfying than they otherwise would've been, I think. (I feel really awful for admitting that but I'm not gonna lie, either.)

The worldbuilding was pretty good, but I wish there was a little more on how they got to that point between now and then. I mean, the geography changes significantly, and yet there's really nothing to explain it. (That's really just me, though.) It could probably be explained away with "well they don't know what happened after the Great Death", but I'm still curious.

Rook is apparently an homage to the Scarlet Pimpernel, which I'm not familiar with at all, but I really love the whole "masked hero" trope (genre?). It's probably from adoring Sailor Moon. I don't know.

TL;DR if you like suspense and longer books, I really think you'd like Rook. It also reminds me a little of the Legend series by Marie Lu, so I'd say check it out if you liked that.