City of Disappointing Writing

Stravaganza: City of Ships
Mary Hoffman
(bk 5, Stavaganza series)

Genre: Historic/Adventure
Audience: Young Adult (12+)
Rating: 3/5

Maybe I've just become more critical of writing, or maybe the style is genuinely slipping, but I found myself picking many holes in this book. The main character, Isabel, is better developed than Matt in the previous volume, and I think Hoffman has learnt from her previous one. The other Stravagantes are kept in the shadows - almost too much - they are undeveloped to the point of if you hadn't read the previous books, you'd be wondering what all these pointless background characters were doing in the story. Of course, you'd also probably be quite confused about the whole Stavagation thing. Her relationship with Charlie is interesting, but the section concerning 1580s England seemed like a rather odd side-track - it had no real relevance to the plot and seemed to contridict what we'd already learned - that they were all linked to an alternate-Italy. If anything, I think the character of Sky should have been further developed, because the whole romance-side-plot was exceedingly weak.

Anyway, enough nitpicking.

"City of Ships" is a decent enough yarn. It's about a 21st century girl, Isabel, who lives in the shadow of her twin brother, Charlie. She discovers her talisman, which transports her into the world of Talia - a bit like our 18th century Italy. Here she visits the city of Classe, a city under threat by the dreaded "Gate" people (I'm not sure where they're from, they're not linked to the di Chimici family, anyhow). With the help of a dashing pirate , the equally charming Lucien and a cast of everyone-from-the-former books, Isabel must help defend the city against this threat. Oh, and there's lots of di Chimici and Belezza politics in there too, that would be really confusing for those of you that haven't read the earlier books.

In conclusion:
Hoffman should really concentrate on developing the characters she's already got, instead of creating more. The earlier ones - Georgia, Nick and Lucien were interesting, the later ones might be interesting too, but I don't really feel I know them. Also, she has an unfortunate habit of "cutting" away from exciting scenes and jumping to the present day when Isabel is telling her Stavagante friends about what happened next. I did enjoy the effect of being a Stravagante on regular social relationships too.

Things I would like to see in Book Six - City of Swords
* More of Andrea
Yeh, that's about it, really. I liked the dashing pirate/rogue. Even if he was very much a cliche - and a little but Captain Sparrow, he did give the book a bit of flair.

I need to go back to re-read the earlier books and see if the same flaws are apparent there. Meanwhile, here's the short review I wrote for the "City of Secrets", book number four.

City of Secrets

Whilst I enjoyed this as I was reading it, I found myself quite disappointed. It just seemed rather clumsy compared to its predecessors. Whilst Matt was an interesting character, he did not really add anything to the plot - Luciano was really the star of the show. And although it was nice to see the old faces show up, it lead the story to feel quite fragmented and clumsy with many ends left frayed and hanging.