Beings in a Dream---Friends and Enemies Part II
After the recent "Fruit Salad Mass," at which the evilpriest Drogo was exposed as the villain who had killed
Eleanora de Narbonne more than a decade ago, Eloise and
Tommy are forced to flee the sixteenth century and the
clutches of Drogo's brother, the Bishop of Toulouse. They
escape back to Tommy's time through the etching that had
originally taken him into the past, and instantly Eloise is
shocked by the culture change. She cannot understand a world
where all people are equal, capital punishment is illegal,
and girls wear almost nothing. But it isn't as if she has
time to appreciate the good things about modern life, for
Drogo has chased them through time and will stop at nothing
to see Tommy and Eloise murdered. When Eloise is sucked back
through time by Drogo's tricks and imprisoned in a nunnery
by her own relatives, Tommy must also find a way back to
rescue his love and capture Drogo. Knowing Tommy and Eloise,
though, it shouldn't be too hard-- after all, they still
have Tommy's beloved mobile phone for contact with the
future, along with all of the friends that they had made on
Tommy's first trip to the past.
David Field's second book in the "Friends and Enemies"
series, while worlds improved over the first, still leaves
much to be desired. His characters, Eloise especially, are
incredibly clinched, too perfect to be at all believable or
even likable, and the setting, certainly in one of history's
more interesting periods, is not in fact entirely
historically accurate. All of the characters speak in the
same voices, complete with twentieth century slang, and the
varying castes can only be differed from one another in
terms of dialect. These weaknesses cause the plot, which, if
pulled off accurately, could have been incredibly
intriguing, to fall flat and become not only predictable but
also uneventful, because as a reader I could not sympathize
at all with the characters. This book's only true strength
was in its writing style, which pulls off a third person
omniscient point of view better than any book I've read in
the past. In fact, at times it was only reading from inside
the minds of certain lesser characters that kept me set on
finishing this book, along with Field's beautiful
descriptions from time to time. Indeed, once the author
masters dialogue and characterization, his books will
certainly rank with some of the better in young adult
literature. Until then, though, the "Friends and Enemies"
series might be better left unread, for fear of discouraging
Field's potential readers.
Almost all characters commit murder or believe themselves
to have done so, and there are many small sexual references.
Christianity is also portrayed in a negative light.
Rating (0 - 10 scale): 5
Reviewer Age:15
Reviewer City, State and Country: , Maryland United States
posted by Flamingnet Book Blog @ 8:02 PM
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