Official Review: Cutthroat Runways by Spiritual
Posted: 12 Aug 2014, 14:52
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Cutthroat Runways" by Spiritual.]
Share This Review
Cutthroat Runways by Spiritual slightly confusingly seems to actually be called Lava Bomb: How to Kill a Legend (it seems as though there may have been some confusion with one part of a series being issued under the title for the whole series?) Regardless of the title, it is the story of how Georgina, the daughter of murdered Polish acrobats, who grows up in a repressed English household, then becomes an actress and performer in the United States, before her subsequent rebirth, about which I will say nothing more for fear of giving too much away.
I had the odd qualm about the novel. Georgina’s habit of insisting men she comes home with kiss her snake (not a euphemism) seemed to be a case of either Georgina or the novel trying a little too hard to be kooky. Does every fictional character who has Tourette’s Syndrome have to have the - relatively rare - kind that compels you to swear? (Which is not, incidentally, to complain about the swearing in the novel as a whole, which is witty, appropriate and realistic). Nevertheless, for the most part I enjoyed the book and found much to admire. The novel spans genres with aplomb, and the supporting cast are excellently realised, particular mention should go to the mysterious Magdalena, the spectral Millie and the talking cat whom the child Georgina befriends, and the Animal Man. The last is the recipient of a kiss from Georgina, then aged 13, in a scene that I thought stayed the right side of the fine line that divides brave provocation from cheap shocks.
The story is well-structured too. The gradual subsumption of Georgina’s identity by Lava Bomb is deftly portrayed in the text, and the growing sense of tragedy and impending violence is pervasive and confidently written, albeit when it does come it is perhaps a little sudden. I suspect readers will disagree as to whether or not the final trigger for Georgina’s final transformation is justification enough for what she does. That is, of course, fine.
Ambition and a willingness to experiment are always good things, even if some aspects do not quite come off. The whole novel is written in the present tense, and although it helps to quicken the pulse in moments of high drama it did not quite work for me. I never stopped being aware of it. And that hints at the reason why I am only able to award the book 2 out of 4 stars.
There are too many occasions when the ambition and the many good attributes of the novel are undermined. This can be in the writing (as when two characters - Georgina’s aunt and uncle, Isabella and William - have an argument about politics speaking in a way that I am not sure anyone has ever spoken), but more often the novel’s sins are sins of editing. Thus we get references to “Crusty [sic] the Clown”; Damien Hirst’s surname is misspelled as “Hurst”; the novel moves around geographically and I am unsure as to where Spiritual comes from, but whether she is writing in British or American English surely “Math’s homework” is wrong. I am partial to a semi-colon, but there is a surfeit here; they are used when commas would have served as well or, often, better. Lament is used for laymen, spies rather than spy’s, families for family’s, flirts to in place of flirts with. It feels somewhat harsh to mark the book down on the basis of what may well be typos, but they were too frequent and, crucially, they diminished my enjoyment of the novel.
***
View hassle-free sample of "Cutthroat Runways"
Share This Review
I had the odd qualm about the novel. Georgina’s habit of insisting men she comes home with kiss her snake (not a euphemism) seemed to be a case of either Georgina or the novel trying a little too hard to be kooky. Does every fictional character who has Tourette’s Syndrome have to have the - relatively rare - kind that compels you to swear? (Which is not, incidentally, to complain about the swearing in the novel as a whole, which is witty, appropriate and realistic). Nevertheless, for the most part I enjoyed the book and found much to admire. The novel spans genres with aplomb, and the supporting cast are excellently realised, particular mention should go to the mysterious Magdalena, the spectral Millie and the talking cat whom the child Georgina befriends, and the Animal Man. The last is the recipient of a kiss from Georgina, then aged 13, in a scene that I thought stayed the right side of the fine line that divides brave provocation from cheap shocks.
The story is well-structured too. The gradual subsumption of Georgina’s identity by Lava Bomb is deftly portrayed in the text, and the growing sense of tragedy and impending violence is pervasive and confidently written, albeit when it does come it is perhaps a little sudden. I suspect readers will disagree as to whether or not the final trigger for Georgina’s final transformation is justification enough for what she does. That is, of course, fine.
Ambition and a willingness to experiment are always good things, even if some aspects do not quite come off. The whole novel is written in the present tense, and although it helps to quicken the pulse in moments of high drama it did not quite work for me. I never stopped being aware of it. And that hints at the reason why I am only able to award the book 2 out of 4 stars.
There are too many occasions when the ambition and the many good attributes of the novel are undermined. This can be in the writing (as when two characters - Georgina’s aunt and uncle, Isabella and William - have an argument about politics speaking in a way that I am not sure anyone has ever spoken), but more often the novel’s sins are sins of editing. Thus we get references to “Crusty [sic] the Clown”; Damien Hirst’s surname is misspelled as “Hurst”; the novel moves around geographically and I am unsure as to where Spiritual comes from, but whether she is writing in British or American English surely “Math’s homework” is wrong. I am partial to a semi-colon, but there is a surfeit here; they are used when commas would have served as well or, often, better. Lament is used for laymen, spies rather than spy’s, families for family’s, flirts to in place of flirts with. It feels somewhat harsh to mark the book down on the basis of what may well be typos, but they were too frequent and, crucially, they diminished my enjoyment of the novel.
***
View hassle-free sample of "Cutthroat Runways"