The Game of Love and Death
by Martha Brockenbrough
Published by Scholastic
Paperback (purchased)
YA, LGBT, historical fiction, romance, fantasy
Antony and Cleopatra. Helen of Troy and Paris. Romeo and Juliet. And now... Henry and Flora.
For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.
Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance?
Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured—a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him.
The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess.
Love and Death were enigmas, and I fell in love with Ethan who was maybe the most intriguing character of the story. That's pretty much first thing you need to know about The Game of Love and Death; Love and Death are surprising at first and enigmas through whole story. Ethan, well, he's the precious one and he should be cherished. But Henry and Flora were quite dull and boring, and their love was neither passionate or heartbreaking as you would expect - especially since the previous players of the game consisted such enigmatic and passionate characters as Romeo & Juliet, Cleopatra & Antony, Helen & Paris (and pretty much every larger than life love stories). If the book would have been about Ethan, or only about Love and Death, it would have been wonderful, heartbreaking and absolutely brilliant. However, Henry and Flora's part dulled the book. I adored every chapter from Love, Death or Ethan's point of view, and just tolerated Henry's and Flora's. And there was minimal amount of flying, even though the cover and the start promised more. So if you're waiting for amazing flying things, there's not much of that there.
In the end, The Game of Love and Death was a mediocre read for me. The blurb, synopsis and the idea behind the story are brilliant. Some characters were almost genious. Brockenbrough have a solid, good writing style also, and there was structurally nothing wrong. Henry and Flora's love story was just flat and quite boring, and even with the historical setting in Seattle during 1930s, there still wasn't that spark a good romance needs. For me, it felt like Henry and Flora was forced to be this larger than life couple even though they didn't have spark or anything truly unique about them. Separately they were interesting enough as characters, but together they were dull. That's the only and major reason, why I didn't click with this book like I wanted to - it had potential to be great, maybe even mind-blowing, if the main couple would have lived up the expectations (or even had that spark).
I can recommend this to anyone who likes romance with historical setting with unique elements. And maybe others find a spark between Henry and Flora that I didn't. Brockenbrough does get a huge plus for all the diverse characters she had, that was wonderful.
3 of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment