Attain The Finisher (Vega Jane, #1) Curated By David Baldacci In Brochure

siger mig at denne bog ikke er for alle, men personligt var jeg tryllebundet fra start til slut, Sammen med Vega var jeg ulideligt nysgerrig efter hvor vi egentlig var, Worldbuildingen var som jeg bedst kan lide den, fuldendt med passende nye fraser og vendinger der passer til verdenen, Det eneste der forstyrrede mig lidt,

var navnet på fængslet og de hestelignende kreaturer, der tilsammen gav mig fornemmelsen af noget nordisk, noget der var svært at hæfte sammen med resten.
Måske dette bliver forklaret i de følgende bøger, måske var det bare et tilfælde,

I hvert fald skal jeg straks igang med den næste, With a heroine that breaks the mould, The Finisher is a mix of adventure, magic amp harsh realities which is certainly a brilliant example of YA written, amp thought out, well.
I especially liked how the romance was subtly fed into the story, and wasn't made to overpower the plot, A gripping novel with an intriguing tale to tell : I have been reading this book for a year and in that year I have done what I often do when I read a book that takes me a long time, particularly if I don't like it I take notes about it on my phone.
Usually, I take those notes and craft them into a review to post on Goodreads, but this time I think I'm just going to type my notes verbatim and leave it.
Needless to say, SPOILERS. Here goes:

If this book is representative of the works of David Baldacci, then I hope never to have the misfortune to read another.


This book is abysmal,

I received a free promotional copy of The Finisher, I sincerely wish I'd left it on a bench somewhere in Florida,

Did nobody edit this book Please never read this book, This is incomprehensible gibberish. I'm serious, nobody read this book before they published it,

Chock full of dense, needless jargon, David Baldacci replaces common English words with other common English words for no discernible reason, His invented words are nothing more than English words with syllables or letters transposed or with a little bit of wordfinal elision in the hopes that you won't notice that "Wugmort" is "mugwort" subjected to a soupcon of metathesis for flair and that "Destin" is "destiny" without the y.
His world features strange creatures with names that would fit nicely with the rest of the mutts in Panem, but they are never described sufficiently for the reader to actually know what they are.
Nor is there any clear reason for the world to have humans and dogs but jabbits instead of whatever the heck jabbits are replacing.
Bears Rabbits Who knows With David Baldacci as your zoologist, all you need to know is that they have stupid names and can kill you!

This book is a train wreck.


God, I hate Vega Jane, Why is she so obnoxious Of course nobody likes you, Vega! You're horrible to everyone! There isn't anyone that you don't think you're better than! Except for the dude whose stuttering you magically cured, which, don't get me started.


I sincerely don't understand the point of the magic in this book, Wtf flashbacks to prehistoric battles, Wtf things that look like your brother and then try to eat you, Wtf mirror thing that is apparently a plot device to keep Vega away from YouMagicallyCuredMyStuttering dude's dad long enough for them to cut his legs off.
Just wtf in general.

This would be a blatant Hunger Games ripoff if it were at all comprehensible,

Where was I on the subject of the language/world building Oh right, The whole use of our timekeeping system with new names fills me with an uncontrollable rage, Lights! Slivers! Birthlight! Sessions! That's days, minutes, birthday, years for the uninitiated, It's a worldbuilding philosophy that pushes beyond regular lazy and closes in on inane, I have a hard time believing that there is no on at Scholastic that had enough sense to say, "Hey, David, this is kind of stupid.
Why don't we just use the regular words for things This book is really bad enough as it is, "

Why is Vega Jane suddenly the most popular person in Wormwood after being super hated for the rest of the book I, for one, still hate her.


Now that I've finished this book, I am going to give it away, It's really a terrible book, though, I'm not sure David Baldacci has ever read any fantasy, or at least, any good fantasy, It's crap like this that gives fantasy a bad name, Baldacci has no idea how to build a believable, logical fantasy society and his attempts at creating his own "language" are cringe worthy, particularly when paired with Vega Jane as the only person who uses nondialectal speech, as she is somehow elevated and more educated than the rest of her society.
It makes me so sad that this is a middle grade book and that children may be first introduced to fantasy through this mess.
It seems like the is no genre of writing that David Baldacci can't excel in, With his latest, The Finisher, he takes on the fantasy genre and does a great job with it, As I was reading this I was getting Hunger Games meets the Book of Revelation kind of vibe from it, The protagonist is a youngyear old girl who lives in a somewhat dystopian society called Wormwood, She and her younger brother are living on their own, as their parents are in a facility awaiting their death, There are mysteries that arise having to do with the area outside of Wormwood and Vega Jane soon finds herself the focus of the authorities because of her friendship with a character who Is wanted by the Council.
She is forced to confront truths about her family, her friends, and herself before the book is over and call upon an inner strength she never knew she had.
The ending definitely leaves open the possibility of this becoming a series, that's a good thing, as we have come to really enjoy the characters, Ayearold girl named Vega Jane lives in a village called Wormwood, where the citizens have been told that the forest surrounding them the Quagis full of deadly monsters.
When Vega's mentor disappears, leaving behind a secret message, she begins to realize that Wormwood is built on dangerous lies, She is forced into a physical competition, with the strongest males in the village, and has to rely on her wits, her only friend Delph, and her canine, Harry Two.
Her intrepid, questioning nature is a threat to the natural order, but allows her to find a number of magical elements, The first half of thispage book was horrendously slow, with too much unnecessary detail, but once things got started, it became a hell of a ride.
David Baldacci has a long career writing adult mysterythrillers with book covers indistinguishable from John Grisham, James Patterson etc, etc. , so I felt like I'd never heard of him when I saw this Young Adult Fantasy in fact, I still have a hard time reconciling the two authors as the same man! Never having read anything by Baldacci before, I can't compare writing or narrative styles between the genres, but was pleasantly engaged in The Finisher.
With some very lovely and dark illustrations by Nathan Aardvark, this fantasy was not what I was expecting, both in terms of plot and setting.


Vega Jane is not quite fifteen years old but has already been working at Stacks as a Finisher for two years education is not highly valued in Wormwood.
Her younger brother John is still at Learning, as they call it, and is very intelligent, Their parents are in Care, and little more than living vegetables, Their grandfather, Virgil, suffered an 'Event' shortly after their grandmother, Calliope, died, when Vega was only six, An Event is a mysterious thing that no one has seen, which takes a person away, leaving absolutely nothing behind,

Wormwood is a place of rough manners, coarse values and vulgar patriarchy, It is encircled by a wood beyond that is the Quag, a vast, dangerous terrain populated by terrifying monsters some of which find their way into the village from time to time.
Ruled by a powerful council, there is little reason to enjoy life, hardly any food for most who live there, and real terrors to keep people in line.


Vega's life changes the night her friend and fellow Finisher, Quentin, flees Wormwood and goes into the Quag, He leaves behind a map of the Quag for Vega Jane, which she inks onto her body so she can destroy the physical copy.
Despite being questioned by the Council, she maintains her secrets, not even sharing them with her best friend, Delph, The map itself doesn't change anything for Vega with a brother to look after and parents in Care, she has no interest in following Quentin to certain death but it drives her to look for answers in places long barred: such as Stacks.
The old, tall building with its hidden floors proves to be full of tricks and powerful objects, and in its rooms Vega discovers much more to her world than she ever knew.


There is much that still puzzles me about this story, particularly the setting, which doesn't always make logical sense, They are one isolated village that is in possession of materials that they do not seem to produce, and certainly their are many questions as to its origins and its purpose and why the Council are so determined to prevent people from leaving it.
It did, of course, bring to mind the film The Village, which I love, but this has little in common with that.
I had read it as a standalone novel, but have just found out that the author is working on the sequel, I'm pleased to hear it, mostly because there are way too many unanswered questions,

The story did not follow the plot that the blurb led me to expect a disingenuous blurb! Rather, it is the story of Vega Jane's discovery of village secrets and what leads up to her escaping I don't feel that mentioning that is a spoiler, as it's patently clear that she will leave Wormwood.
It takes the entire book, allpages, to get to that point, though had I known that, I would have read it differently, relaxed more into it.
It's interesting, reading a Fantasy novel by an author who doesn't typically write fantasy: it does not always follow the rules, making it both fresh and also, at times, a bit confusing.
It's a tricky world to create and lead a reader through: the narrator is steeped in ignorance, on a journey of discovery, but there's an even bigger gulf between the reader and knowledge.
A bit more wellplaced exposition might have helped smooth the way,

An enjoyable, often exciting read with a heroine I genuinely liked, .