Saturday, July 6, 2013

Review: The Year of the Great Seventh by Teresa Orts

The Year of the Great Seventh by Teresa Orts The Year of the Great Seventh (The Tropic of Cancer #1)
By Teresa Orts
Publisher:
Drayton Press

* A copy was provided by the author for review.

To Sum It Up:

Despite living in Los Angeles, having a casting director mother, and being surrounded by friends with budding acting careers, Sophie Bennett doesn’t aspire to be part of the glamorous crowd. Instead she hopes to follow her dream of studying history at New York University. In the meantime, Sophie still has two years of high school to get through, and her crush on one of the most popular students, Nate Werner, isn’t making it easy. Even when Nate suddenly begins behaving erratically, Sophie continues to be drawn to him. It turns out that she may be the only person who can save him and prevent an ominous ancient Egyptian prophecy from being fulfilled.

Review:

Ancient Egyptian history is a subject that I’ve always found interesting, and so the premise of The Year of the Great Seventh intrigued me. I’d expected this to be a quest-oriented type of novel, and to some degree, it was. But a sizable portion of it was also devoted to detailing the everyday life among the young, rich, and beautiful of L. A. The book often seemed like two separate books to me, one a contemporary about Hollywood glitz and the other the quest-centered novel I’d assumed it was. Unfortunately, the two didn’t quite find a melding point, and I felt like the novel was competing to be both books at once.

At first I didn’t mind the heavy focus on the L. A. acting scene, but when I reached the 40% mark or so and not much related to the ancient Egyptian prophecy had happened, my patience started to wane. It seemed as though every minor character needed to have his/her life story explained; after a while, it really didn’t matter to me who was playing what role in whatever production. I kept waiting for the prophecy-related action to kick in, but it only made brief appearances here and there. By the end of the novel, I thought that an entire book could have been written solely about the struggles of the protagonist, Sophie, to fit in among her circle of acting friends.

I had a couple of issues with Sophie’s character. She’s very insecure and constantly fretting over how she’s not the social equal of her friends. To me, though, they didn’t appear to see her differently because she wasn’t involved in the acting scene. They definitely don’t treat her like an outcast. Sophie’s “I’m not worthy” outlook extends to her crush on Nate Werner, one of the most popular boys in school. He steps in to defend her at a party after another of the school’s social elite, Ethan Dulwich, gets overly friendly with Sophie at a party. But Nate loses complete control of his temper and makes himself look like the bad guy. Sophie tries to talk to Nate about what happened, but he warns her that it’s in her best interest to stay away from him. He eventually reveals his deep, dark secret to her, which only makes her obsess over him even more. Sophie expends so much effort thinking about Nate that her grades begin to suffer. That is a big NO in my book. I’m sorry, but no guy is worth failing classes over. I had a problem with her whole attitude toward Nate; she centers her existence around him and talks about him in such a melodramatic way. I didn’t actually dislike Sophie; I just wanted her to realize that she was perfectly capable of standing on her two feet by herself.

The book’s prose utilizes more telling than showing, resulting in a rather stilted narrative voice for Sophie. I also had a hard time believing that her dad was fine with allowing his sixteen-year-old daughter to go to New York, ostensibly for a college tour, on her own. Both parents object to the idea initially, but then her dad has a change of heart. He doesn’t even know that Nate is secretly going, too, so he and Sophie can look at some obelisks that once belonged to Cleopatra (finally—something relevant to the prophecy). Sophie uses the New York University tour as a cover story, but she does actually visit the campus. I had to wrestle with my disbelief again during her time there, and I think even more so because I’m an alum of the College of Arts and Science, the very same school of the university that Sophie is interested in applying to. I’m sure many things have changed since my days as a student there, but I don’t believe a visit to the basement of a dormitory to see a secret smoking/drinking lair is a standard part of the tour for a prospective student. I know this is a fictitious use of a real place, but this place happened to be one that’s very close to my heart. What really bothered me, though, was how totally cool Sophie thought her tour guide, Paul, was for showing her this room and for basically asking her out. To me, this was all kind of . . . creepy.

The story did gain some momentum when Sophie and Nate went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library to further investigate the prophecy, and with any luck, to find a way to help Nate. I wish that events like these had taken place a lot sooner and a lot more frequently. The characters were occupied with something other than discussing someone’s latest acting gig, and there was a palpable sense of tension to the story. I definitely would have enjoyed this book more if the historical/mythological element had played a much larger role because when it had the spotlight, it was absorbing.

All in All:

Unfortunately, there wasn’t quite enough adventure here to draw me in. The look into L. A. life, while interesting in the beginning, wasn’t the kind of story line that was going to hold my attention for a whole book.

10 comments:

  1. Great review, Lee. The lack of action would have been a problem for me too.

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    1. I thought that this would be more of an adventure type read, but it wasn't, which was disappointing. Novels that focus on celebrity culture aren't really my thing.

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  2. Aww, bummer. I have a copy of this one too. I've been reading a fair amount of books lately that seem to have some of these same problems mentioned in your review. It won't make me rush to get to this one. :( Especially if some action doesn't catch my attention before about the 25% mark.

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    1. I'm not a big contemporary reader, and this felt like it leaned more toward that genre than paranormal/mythological. I was also really dismayed to see the MC letting her academic performance suffer just because of a guy. :(

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  3. Wow, it does sound like a bit of a bi-polar book. Either one of the story-points would be interesting but waiting for the main action would get tedious. I can see why the low rating. Sorry this one was disappointing. Jaclyn @ JC's Book Haven.

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    1. Things sort of picked up toward the end, but not enough for me to look past the other issues I already had with the book.

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  4. I'd never heard about this one before but like you, I would have automatically been attracted to it because of the mention of Ancient Egypt. While I'm sorry this didn't work for you, your review serves as a warning to steer clear so I'm glad you brought it to my attention. My current read also features an obsessive girl and I definitely don't want a repeat anytime soon O.O It's especially a bummer that this didn't have more questing and Egyptian prophecy bits... it probably would have helped a lot. Lovely review as always Lee, thanks for the helpful insight :)

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    1. I could see Sophie having a crush on Nate and even wanting to help Nate, but when she got so distracted that she couldn't pay attention in school, the book lost me. It was extra grating because she had gone on and on about her college dreams, and then to practically throw them away over a guy? No way.

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  5. Great review, sounds like a pass!

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    1. More ancient Egyptian mythology would have helped, plus I just find myself less and less patient with girls who drop everything for a guy. Must be a sign of my old age, lol.

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