Book Review: The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering, by L. Jagi Lamplighter
The fifth book in the Rachel Griffin series. Can we finish the school year?
Silver Empire, 2020, 466 pages
...She has discovered she has an older sister named Amber, who was stolen-away as a baby. Nobody but Rachel remembers her--not even their parents. Rachel is determined to find Amber and restore her to the family. But how?
She doubts it will be as easy as overhearing the name Rumpelstiltskin.
Meanwhile, Rachel has bigger problems. Wild fey have invaded the campus. If they so much as bewitch even one more student, Roanoke Academy will be forced to close its doors. Rachel and her friends must solve this menace before the academy cancels more classes or, worse, the Year of the Dragon Ball!
But she has hope--if she can keep the school open--because, as Rachel's late grandmother told her, Masquerade balls are a time of wonder... when anything is possible.
I was enchanted by the first book in the Rachel Griffin series: The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin. The second book, The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel, was fun but, uh, a little bloated and there didn't seem to be a lot of character or plot progression.
The next three books continue to cover Rachel's first year at the Roanoke Academy, and to be honest, getting through book five was kind of a grind.
One of the flaws in this series, which I have noted before, is that it's based on a homebrew roleplaying campaign with the author and her friends and family, and so most of the protagonists are someone's Player Character. This is extremely obvious at times, as you can see them acting according to virtues or flaws on their character sheets, demonstrating abilities that do not necessarily make sense in this fictional world but which the player undoubtedly thought were cool and the GM okayed. Now and then chapters will focus on one particular secondary character and then that character will mostly disappear for the rest of the book.
In The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering, Rachel's "special ability" of having perfect memory (which is not just photographic, but so precise she can actually "review" her memories as if she were a computer performing an image search with infinite precision - yeah, it's pretty silly) is a major plot point. It turns out her mother has the same ability, and this leads to discovering that Rachel has an older sister she never knew about. Amber Griffin was taken from her parents when she was a toddler, and all memories of her were erased, until years later, she returns as a super-deadly magical ninja bodyguard. Oh, hello brand new Player Character!
So, much of the book is concerned with Rachel trying to reintegrate Amber into her family, while Amber is having none of it because now she's a super-deadly magical ninja bodyguard to the "Master of the World" (who is either Lucifer or trying to protect multiple worlds from extradimensional magical threats - possibly both) who thinks her parents gave her away when she was a baby.
But you know what else takes up about half this book? The Magical Yuletide Ball. There are many, many oh-so-goddamn many chapters of Rachel dancing with her boyfriend Gaius, and dancing with her future brother-in-law Vladimir Von Dread (whom she actually seems to have the hots for more than her boyfriend, which is problematic in multiple ways) and dancing with other boys and urrgggh when will something actually happen?
Am I starting to sound really annoyed with these books? I am getting really annoyed with these books, even though I still find them charming enough in their goofy way that I will probably read the next one.
One underlying theme that has been running through the entire series is that it's a closet Christian fantasy. In Rachel's world, monotheistic religions have been made to vanish from human memory, but now she has a special friend, Jariel the Raven, who is also the Guardian of the World and an angel. And she's been talking to Aslanthe Comfort Lion. Each book she learns a little bit more and has a few pivotal moments where her character development is being pushed in an obviously Christian direction.
Besides the cloaked Narnia stuff, there is a whole lot of very awkward romance. Rachel is thirteen, dating a sixteen-year-old, and there's also something kinda sorta going on between her and her 19-year-old future brother-in-law. It is frequently mentioned how Rachel would never do anything inappropriate (and her boyfriend is very respectful of this and therefore a 16-year-old chaste enough to be one of King Arthur's knights) and that her family is bothered by her having a boyfriend, and yet the author does keep flirting with Rachel going... if not "there" then somewhere. I dunno, it's weird and a little bit creepy.
Even more creepy is the emphasis on Rachel being both half-Korean and a member of the English aristocracy. The Korean part seems to be just an excuse to throw lots of Korean terms like dongsaeng and unnie into her dialog with her siblings. But Rachel's family is very British and very aristocratic and they worry a lot about status (for example, Rachel is very indignant that her sister is assigned to bodyguard her friend Nastasia - like a mere commoner!). Maybe it's the American in me but it's almost like a version of all those Harry Potter fanfics where the author decides to make Harry even more special by finding out he's a titled Lord of something or other, like we're supposed to just naturally recognize that nobles are better. Um, no thank you - even if Rachel gets the "all are equal before God" Sunday school lesson, her "blood-brother" Siegfried (a Muggleborn orphan) should give her some shit about being so uppity.
Anyway, the Rachel Griffin series is basically a very long fanfic. I'm kind of invested in it now, but there are literally fanfiction series that are better-written than this, and certainly which move a lot faster.
Also by L. Jagi Lamplighter: My reviews of The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel, Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland, and The Awful Truth About Forgetting.
My complete list of book reviews.
Silver Empire, 2020, 466 pages
...She has discovered she has an older sister named Amber, who was stolen-away as a baby. Nobody but Rachel remembers her--not even their parents. Rachel is determined to find Amber and restore her to the family. But how?
She doubts it will be as easy as overhearing the name Rumpelstiltskin.
Meanwhile, Rachel has bigger problems. Wild fey have invaded the campus. If they so much as bewitch even one more student, Roanoke Academy will be forced to close its doors. Rachel and her friends must solve this menace before the academy cancels more classes or, worse, the Year of the Dragon Ball!
But she has hope--if she can keep the school open--because, as Rachel's late grandmother told her, Masquerade balls are a time of wonder... when anything is possible.
I was enchanted by the first book in the Rachel Griffin series: The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin. The second book, The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel, was fun but, uh, a little bloated and there didn't seem to be a lot of character or plot progression.
The next three books continue to cover Rachel's first year at the Roanoke Academy, and to be honest, getting through book five was kind of a grind.
One of the flaws in this series, which I have noted before, is that it's based on a homebrew roleplaying campaign with the author and her friends and family, and so most of the protagonists are someone's Player Character. This is extremely obvious at times, as you can see them acting according to virtues or flaws on their character sheets, demonstrating abilities that do not necessarily make sense in this fictional world but which the player undoubtedly thought were cool and the GM okayed. Now and then chapters will focus on one particular secondary character and then that character will mostly disappear for the rest of the book.
In The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering, Rachel's "special ability" of having perfect memory (which is not just photographic, but so precise she can actually "review" her memories as if she were a computer performing an image search with infinite precision - yeah, it's pretty silly) is a major plot point. It turns out her mother has the same ability, and this leads to discovering that Rachel has an older sister she never knew about. Amber Griffin was taken from her parents when she was a toddler, and all memories of her were erased, until years later, she returns as a super-deadly magical ninja bodyguard. Oh, hello brand new Player Character!
So, much of the book is concerned with Rachel trying to reintegrate Amber into her family, while Amber is having none of it because now she's a super-deadly magical ninja bodyguard to the "Master of the World" (who is either Lucifer or trying to protect multiple worlds from extradimensional magical threats - possibly both) who thinks her parents gave her away when she was a baby.
But you know what else takes up about half this book? The Magical Yuletide Ball. There are many, many oh-so-goddamn many chapters of Rachel dancing with her boyfriend Gaius, and dancing with her future brother-in-law Vladimir Von Dread (whom she actually seems to have the hots for more than her boyfriend, which is problematic in multiple ways) and dancing with other boys and urrgggh when will something actually happen?
Am I starting to sound really annoyed with these books? I am getting really annoyed with these books, even though I still find them charming enough in their goofy way that I will probably read the next one.
One underlying theme that has been running through the entire series is that it's a closet Christian fantasy. In Rachel's world, monotheistic religions have been made to vanish from human memory, but now she has a special friend, Jariel the Raven, who is also the Guardian of the World and an angel. And she's been talking to Aslanthe Comfort Lion. Each book she learns a little bit more and has a few pivotal moments where her character development is being pushed in an obviously Christian direction.
Besides the cloaked Narnia stuff, there is a whole lot of very awkward romance. Rachel is thirteen, dating a sixteen-year-old, and there's also something kinda sorta going on between her and her 19-year-old future brother-in-law. It is frequently mentioned how Rachel would never do anything inappropriate (and her boyfriend is very respectful of this and therefore a 16-year-old chaste enough to be one of King Arthur's knights) and that her family is bothered by her having a boyfriend, and yet the author does keep flirting with Rachel going... if not "there" then somewhere. I dunno, it's weird and a little bit creepy.
Even more creepy is the emphasis on Rachel being both half-Korean and a member of the English aristocracy. The Korean part seems to be just an excuse to throw lots of Korean terms like dongsaeng and unnie into her dialog with her siblings. But Rachel's family is very British and very aristocratic and they worry a lot about status (for example, Rachel is very indignant that her sister is assigned to bodyguard her friend Nastasia - like a mere commoner!). Maybe it's the American in me but it's almost like a version of all those Harry Potter fanfics where the author decides to make Harry even more special by finding out he's a titled Lord of something or other, like we're supposed to just naturally recognize that nobles are better. Um, no thank you - even if Rachel gets the "all are equal before God" Sunday school lesson, her "blood-brother" Siegfried (a Muggleborn orphan) should give her some shit about being so uppity.
Anyway, the Rachel Griffin series is basically a very long fanfic. I'm kind of invested in it now, but there are literally fanfiction series that are better-written than this, and certainly which move a lot faster.
Also by L. Jagi Lamplighter: My reviews of The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel, Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland, and The Awful Truth About Forgetting.
My complete list of book reviews.