Book Review: The Shifter

The Shifter by Janice Hardy is another one of those books that I've had on my to-read list for a while. It was worth the wait. Hardy creates a world and a character that immediately draw us in--one that reminds me of a weird mix between the Everglades, the Amazon and Venice. Her islands are richly detailed, and she even provides us with a map at the beginning of the story to help us keep everything straight (though I never found the need to refer to it).

And the characters themselves and the situations they are in are pretty fascinating which helped move the solid plot along at a fairly swift pace.

According to the book's blurb:

Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker—with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person into her own body. But unlike her sister, Tali, and the other Takers who become Healers' League apprentices, Nya's skill is flawed: She can't push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it into another person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from forces occupying her city. If discovered, she'd be used as a human weapon against her own people.

Rumors of another war make Nya's life harder, forcing her to take desperate risks just to find work and food. She pushes her luck too far and exposes her secret to a pain merchant eager to use her shifting ability for his own sinister purposes. At first Nya refuses, but when Tali and other League Healers mysteriously disappear, she's faced with some difficult choices. As her father used to say, principles are a bargain at any price; but how many will Nya have to sell to get Tali back alive?

I found the plot thrilling, the setting satisfying and the Taking intriguing, but I never really connected with Nya as a character. I'm not sure if it's the author's fault or mine here, but I found Nya to be all action, not much reflection. True, not all characters are soul-searchers, but I felt like she was too concerned with doing for others to think about herself. Oh, sure, she has moments where she considers taking the "bad" guys up on their notorious offers, but as a reader you know that she won't because she is the "good" guy. But even KNOWING this, I would have liked for the author to make me second-guess myself and the character as well. It's extremely hard to do with first person POV, so I can understand that of all the lovely, glowing things about this book, this was the one to sort of fall flat. However, I just couldn't get over how convenient things became for Nya. She has to make some hard decisions, maybe even do some bad things, but she still comes out of it without nary a scrape. Call me cynical, but I wanted to see Nya make a really tough choice and, for once, not come out so intact.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I didn't LIKE Nya. I did. I rooted for her and I wanted her to win. I just wanted her to suffer more. Yeah, twisted of me. :P

But the book, like I said, has a lot going for it. The world-building is excellent. The culture was well-described but not so much that it seemed like an info-dump. And I still cannot get over how fascinating the Taking and healing is. I look forward to reading the second in this series and, who knows, maybe I'll finally connect with Nya.

Recommended: Yes, for those looking for an interesting world and a fast plot.

Rating (out of five stars): 4