Main Characters:
Violet White
Luke White
River West
Neely West
Sunshine Black
Brodie
New Characters:
Finch
Canto
Pine
Main Premise: Violet decides the Christmas following the events in the last book that she needs to go find River and Brodie. After hearing some weird stories late at night on the radio, Violet and Neely think that River and/or Brodie could be causing some weird things in Inn’s End, Virginia or Carollie, North Carolina. So, with Luke and Sunshine, they head out. When they get to the small town in Virginia, they learn that it was probably one of them, but they have left. And they save a boy, Finch, from being killed. Finch tags along to the Outerbanks in NC where the next story takes place. River and Neely send Luke and Sunshine home to check to see if Brodie is back in Maine and they head with Finch to Carollie NC. It turns out River is in NC, and he has gone mad from the glow and thinks he is a Sea King. Brodie had jsut been there, it turns out, and Brodie had killed at least one boy. When Neely and Vi discover River, River is so lost and crazy that he tries to sacrifice Finch to the sea (he wants to sacrifice Canto, but Finch volunteers instead). The girl that the group stays with, Canto, comes with Finch, Vi, Neely and River to Colorado where another story is spreading and Neely thinks Brodie might be. But River isn’t getting better – the madness isn’t stopping. And this is where it is discovered the Neely does have a glow of his own – he calls it an anti-glow since what ever he does stops River’s glow. But it physically hurts him and causes bruises and is taking a toll on him. Meanwhile, during the trip, Vi and Neely have grown closer. And Vi is becoming torn about the brothers and who she has feelings for. When Vi realizes they should leave they get snowed in. Just in time for Luke and Sunshine to show up. Vi has also been reading her grandmother’s diary throughout the trip and we are learning all sorts of bad things about the glow and what River’s grandfather did with it/because of it.
Locations: Echo, Maine; Inn’s End, Virginia; Carollie, North Carolina; Gold Hollow, Colorado
Other Important Things to Remember for Later:
Spoiling the Mystery/How it Ended: Finch is Brodie! He was using his powers to make everyone think he was someone different. Violet figures it out. We learn that River’s glow changed because Brodie drowned him in the ocean and then brought him back. Then, when River in his madness drowned Finch/Brodie, Brodie’s spark changed too. When Violet confronts Finch/Brodie (she cuts his wrist, trying to kill him) we learn how Brodie has all sorts of bad plans but he also sometimes gets lost in Finch’s personality – it is like he is both Brodie and Finch (even though he “crushed” the real Finch). He takes off to escape and the group chase him. River, chasing him across a frozen lake falls in. But Brodie pulls him out. The group then heads back to the Citizen. When the arrive, they find Pine (a young girl who helped them escape Inn’s End) had come to the Citizen. River says he crushed Brodie, like Brodie crushed Finch (using his powers, he just sort of squeezed his mind/soul – whatever) and crushed Brodie. Violet and Luke’s parents are gone again by the time the group returns (off to Italy). Canto leaves to find the real finch – if he lives since Pine told everyone that he was found but in a deep sleep and no one could wake him). Neely leaves to find another of the folks that he heard about on the radio, in case it’s another half-sibling and he can save him before he turns into Brodie or River. Vi makes him promise to come back – but she lets him go. River’s madness mostly wore off. And Vi is waiting fro Neely to come back.
Review:
Between the Spark and the Burn, the sequel to Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Geneive Tucholke, takes some odd turns, unfortuantely non of them lead us to the nice little bow that signifies the end. Instead of going out with a bang it sort of just fizzled into the nether.
I felt like I was back watching the last episode of Carnivale, Deadwood or the Pushing Daisies – don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t exactly the cliffhanger that Las Vegas or the Glades (total tangent: while this is a book site, A&E is on my sh*t list because really, Galdes and Longmire? What is wrong with you TV people? They were excellent shows and the only, ONLY, reason I watched your network!) left us with, but this story left more loose ends then a grass skirt factory. I give you TV show examples because TV shows, I think, are way more frustrating to have end on cliffhangers or leave with loose ends. Don’t get me wrong, I am not asking for a happily ever after or having everything tied up in a nice little bow I can hang on my Christmas wreath. But there is a big difference between a few unanswered questions and the frustrating, bang your head, when is the next book coming out feeling. Think for a moment of Harry Potter if you will. We get an epilogue at the end of Deathly Hallows, but not absolutely everything is tied up. There are still questions. For example, one of the things that bothers me to this day is why Snape hated all Griffyndor students, not just Harry. Where exactly did that animosity come from; surely it isn’t solely because of James. Why, despite being expellend from Hogwarts, is Hagrid prohibited from doing magic “striclty speaking”? There is mention of home schooling and am I really supposed to believe that Stan Shunpike got through school… so why can’t Hagrid use magic (especially since he was vindicated)? Does Dolores finally get her comuppance? What were the Centuars seeing in the stars? See… loose ends. And I can live with them. Heck, I even enjoy thinking up my own resolution to those loose ends. But It’s not like book seven never happened and we are left wondering if Harry ever defeated Volemort or if we really should have trusted Snape. The end of Between the Spark and the Burn left the latter type of questions unanswered. And damn it, I feel cheated by the fizzle that was the end of this book.
The plot is basically this: Violet needs to find River; she wants him back. She and her troupe, including Neely, head out to find hi, and or Brodie, in places that have been reported on this weird radio show that discusses the weird and strange. On the way they encounter trials and seem to add to their rag-tag band of merrymen. It all culminates with how they “find” Brodie too.
In addition to all those loose ends, there were some odd places that we traveled to. Both in terms of geography (we ger Carrolie NC, a fictional part of the Outerbanks; I kept thinking it was a typo and it should have been Carrolla…) and in terms of plot. That is not to say that some of them weren’t interesting and even welcome (regardless of other’s perspectives I don’t think it was predictable; guessable, yes, but not predictable). Like the first book we have all sorts of things going one: a boy with hooves instead of feet and flames in his hair, a devil boy and dead ravens; a sea king who sacrifices virgins and a haunted fisherman’s shack; a highlander hung in a dead tree and talking trees and all the children are missing; blizzards, ice cream trucks… the wierdness is pretty bountiful in this book.
As to the guessability versus predictability – I am making the distinction because I think that this didn’t follow the formula seen in most YA books. Some of that comes from the loose ends and some of that comes from the failure to move certain aspects of the plot along. Whatever the reason, however, the map I would draw for this plot does not look like the typical YA love-triangle-with-a-supernatural-bent map. That’s not to say that I didn’t feel a little like I was bing hit over the head with a sledgehammer every time the author tried to foreshadow or hint at what might have been going on. This is why I say it was totally guessable. I will not take credit for guessing it early on, no, I came late to the party and didn’t guess until right before the big reveal. But seem to guess stuff like that only about one third of the time. And the fact that I guessed the there was something up with Neely and it wa his own power blew any chance I had at guessing the whole Brodie/Finch thing.
I will note there was not exactly any huge improvements in the writing style or anything. But it was consistent. We still have a convienent parental void (merely letting the kids run off is so easily accepted), but I say like I said when reviweing the first book that that is typical of the YA genre. We still have just enough setting description to paint broad stoke images of the house in Carollie and the motel in Colorado. We have characters that for what ever reason have no trouble running off with strangers (stranger danger, anyone? Anyone ever heard of it? Definitely not something for the younger crowd to look to as a model for behavior). And we have just the barest hint of romance.
But it works. It gets the story moving and gets us up to that unfinished ending. So, while it isn’t exactly great literature, it wasn’t bad either. It There were even the rare moments of comedy (although whether intentional or not I can’t say) like the mental image conjured when the ice cream truck rolled up to the motel. It was easy to follow, the dialogue was decent and the characters seemed to follow a natural progression from where they were in relation to themseleves and others to where they needed to be for this story to conclude. There even seemed to be a little more character development, certainly there was character progression (Brodie/Finch saving River from the freezing depths of the lake). I am guessing, however, that the author intentionally painted many things in varying shades of grey as a lesson that not everything is black and white. So despite how neatly that makes things (and how much I like that in books I read for fun), it just wasn’t the case here. River is the epitome of grey area. The author paints a picture quite contrary to the rigid black-and-white, good-and-evil scenario. People aren’t always either good or evil. And sometimes people are just bad to be bad, not because the devil made them do it. We see a lot of that here. We also see nobility in a different way: Neely’s sacrifice for his brother seems truly selfless – he is not going to get anything in return and he won’t stop. He does it because he loves his brother. There is a nice contrast between that relationship and self sacrifice and the relationship between the White parents and their children, where they leave the kiddos home to fend for themselves while they puruse their art.
My biggest gripe, if not already evident from the opening of this review, is that the conclusion doesn’t tie things up – not really. I am left wondering so very much. What if River couldn’t completely crush Brodie, and he is in there still somewhere? If Canto can find Finch and bring him back, then Brodie can probably come back too… What if Neely doesn’t come back? Will the burn, spark and glow all stay away? It was disappointing to learn that this is merely a sequel and not just the next in a series. The author notes in two places on her website that this is it – the end to this story. But I would really love to see what happens to this group next. Who will Vi choose? What will happen to River and Brodie? Does Canto find and save Finch? All those unanswered questions don’t sit well with the notion that this book was the “conclusion to” the first. But, that’s what the author asks me to believe. So I guess I just need to live with the fact that the spark and the burn are fizzled out afterall.
Special Note: I don’t care if it’s Brody or Brodie… I use them interchangeable because I think the correct spelling is really irrelevant to my review. I know what I mean by either spelling.
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