Media: Audiobook
Publisher: Redhook
Length: 18 hours 3 minutes
Rating: 4.5/5
For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob -- a young lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancée, and an utterly normal life -- hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his life's duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world... and for once, it isn't Charley's doing.
There's someone else who shares his powers. It's up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them, before these characters tear apart the fabric of reality.
A mystery, wrapped in an adventure, mixed with a drop of magical realism, and dripping family drama is the best way to describe this book. Despite the way the book blurb makes it sound, our main narrator for this novel is actually Rob. We also dip into the prospective of two other characters, Lidia, Rob's fiancée, and Millie, a fictional character who has grown up. Sprinkled in throughout the whole story is excerpts from diaries that Charley wrote from age 2 onward. There is something about mysteries with a touch of magic that I gravitate toward. (To be fair I gravitate toward anything with a touch of magic in it.) Part of the appeal for me is the sheer unpredictability that magic adds to the story. Because of the way that mysteries are formulaic, they have a hard time surprising me with the outcome. Mysteries with magic, even in the smallest of quantities, have a far greater chance of taking me by surprise.
This novel does that is spades! Between the magical abilities to bring fictional characters into the world and the fictional characters themselves, I was never 100% sure where the ending would, well, end up.
A Literary Wonderland
Along with his ability to bring fictional characters to life, Charley is a professor of Dickensian Literature (a phrase which refers to large tomes with a multitude of subplots surrounding a central moral narrative, usually with a large cast of characters). Much of the characters we in counter throughout this narrative come from Victorian era literature including Sherlock Holmes (he really is everywhere this month), Dorian Gray, the Artful Dodger, and Uriah Heep himself. We also run into Matilda, Heathcliff, The White Witch, The Invisible Man, and no less that 5 Mr. Darcys. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like if characters from your favorite books met each other, H.G. Perry will break you of that notion cause as it turns out, they mostly don't get along.
The thing I loved the most about the use of all these well known characters is that you don't have to know their stories to understand their role in this one. Perry could have mad this a book that requires at least eight novels worth of homework to truly understand. She was able to avoid that by choosing characters that are incredibly well known to the point that their existence has surpassed their novel or she made up fictional characters of her own. The fictional-fictional character of Millie Radcliffe-Dix "Girl Detective" plays a big role in this mystery. She is a play on Nancy Drew in some ways, but is entirely her own character. This allowed Perry to play around with Millie's character traits a little more. As one of the only fictional characters who lives half in the real world, holding down an job and ageing, Millie needed to be malleable. If Perry had attempted to place a real-fictional character in Millie's place there would have been too many concerns/complaints about how the character was changed from their original form.
And that is part of the ENTIRE POINT of the story. Along with giving us a mystery adventure, Perry's story is a commentary on literary criticism and reader interpretation. As an English Lit major myself, I felt sooooooooo seen and it reminded me of what I love about the work I do.
We are Family
My other favorite piece of this story is the depiction of family. The focus of the sibling relationship between Rob and Charley was a masterpiece. The number of times I cried because of the way those two interacted and talked about one another, well I lost count. As both a younger sibling and an older sibling, I felt uniquely attacked by the feelings flying around in this book. I knew that there was a possibly world ending mystery happening here, but every time Rob talked about wanting to protect his little brother from the hurt of the world or Charley mentioned how much he just wanted Rob to be proud of him...ouch. I am tearing up just thinking about it.
Sibling relationships are so uniquely complex in a way that only other siblings can understand. Writing sibling relationships is even harder than understanding them, so the flawless way Perry balances the unending annoyance and attachment and love is beyond impressive. I can point to two key examples of where she just gets it right. The first is how neither Charley or Rob says a word about these possibly deadly events to their parents until one of them ends up in the hospital. Charley asked for Rob's help, this is between siblings and that is that. The second is how even when Charley and Rob have had a fight and aren't speaking to one another, the second someone else levels a threat against the other brother, a phrase like, "don't lay a finger on my brother or I'll kill you myself" comes out of their mouths. This is the epitome of sibling love right there.
Without spoiling any of the story, I will also mention Perry does such a good job with the other aspects of familial relationships in this novel. The overall message that family is what you make it is strongly written between all of the characters, both from fiction and the real world.
The only reason that this book wasn't a five star for me was the pacing. There were times where things seemed to be happening, yet nothing at all was actually happening. Certain parts of the book just dragged for no reason. It only lost a half of a star for this because I don't have a way off the top of my head that it could have been fixed. Overall it really was an almost perfect read to me!
If you've read The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep, what did you think of it? Did you love the use of fiction and literary analysis as a plot device? Who was your favorite character? How did you feel about the many twists at the end? Let me know in the comments!
As always,
Keep wondering and stay wandering!
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