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chuckroIn the wake of a harrowing incident that lands his mother in the hospital, Ephraim finds a magic coin that can grant his wishes. But every granted wish seems to cause additional changes to the world around him, and not all of them good. The consequences of making wishes may be much bigger than Ephraim realizes…
Disclosure: This is another book where I’m friends with the author. (ecmyers, in case you weren’t aware.) I may be biased. I’m also going to be picky because I can—the book is quite good and I like Myers’ style, but parts of it still irk me.
This is the first YA book with a teenage male protagonist that I can remember reading that actually realistically depicts the thought processes of a teenage boy. That is, Ephraim is a horndog who is constantly aware of the bodies of the women around him. Adult women writing teenage boys never, ever get this right (and “mortal guardians” often encourage them not to, anyway). Looking at a cute girl’s eyes rather than down her top is a realistic struggle for most teenage boys, and it’s nice to see it in fiction.
The book looks like it’s a dark fantasy story, and plays out that way for about half of it, but then takes a sci-fi twist when we learn how the coin actually works and what was actually going on for the first half. I’m not sure I agree with the pacing choice and the shift in tone. I think the explanation works—I’ve never really objected to Doing In The Wizard—but I think it should have been saved for the climax of the novel, as the second half kinda feels like the big narrative has gotten spent and it’s a wandering dénouement. (Also, admittedly, I think I was more interested in the monkey’s paw wishing coin concept than in the many-worlds Sliders story.) I was gritting my teeth though several chapters where Ephraim is buddying up with Evil Nate, after the climatic-feeling scene where Evil Nate sexually harasses and then shoots Jena. We’re shown this guy is irredeemable; but then spend far too long trying to humanize him again before getting rid of him. There’s too much “many this isn’t so bad” with a guy who Ephraim WATCHED COMMIT MURDER.
The ending twist (that Zoe/Jena can use the controller) was also a bit of a cheat, because I couldn’t find foreshadowing to it anywhere. It makes things too easy to wrap up, and given the late introduction (and the fact that they had Nathaniel to fill that role), it felt like a dues ex machina.
Honestly, the design of the coin-controller combination has fridge logic issues. I see the value in a system where you need two users to prevent abuse; but that’s at odds with the dangers of world-hopping and the fact that if someone gets hurt, you’re stranded and can’t even call home. Also, the fact that the coin can still be used without the controller (but the controller can follow), just inaccurately, means that it doesn’t really have safeguards, just limitations. A better safeguard would be if the coin couldn’t work without the controller, and vice-verse, except that ANY authorized user could get the coin to bring them back to the “home” universe. I realize that there wouldn’t be a story in this case, but it would be a much more sensible design.
I’d love to read a series of “bonus vignettes” about the Ephraims who got swapped around by the wishes and then put back at the end, and what each of them made of the changes in their lives. The analog swapped from “good mom” to “alcoholic mom”, who I think was asleep in bed when he was switched back, probably was the Best Son Ever for some time after that, having gotten a month(?) of what might have been. The ones swapped through various relationship changes probably ended up in confusing but amusing situations repeatedly. This seems ripe for fanfiction, except that I still want Ecmyers to write it…
Disclosure: This is another book where I’m friends with the author. (
ecmyers, in case you weren’t aware.) I may be biased. I’m also going to be picky because I can—the book is quite good and I like Myers’ style, but parts of it still irk me.This is the first YA book with a teenage male protagonist that I can remember reading that actually realistically depicts the thought processes of a teenage boy. That is, Ephraim is a horndog who is constantly aware of the bodies of the women around him. Adult women writing teenage boys never, ever get this right (and “mortal guardians” often encourage them not to, anyway). Looking at a cute girl’s eyes rather than down her top is a realistic struggle for most teenage boys, and it’s nice to see it in fiction.
The book looks like it’s a dark fantasy story, and plays out that way for about half of it, but then takes a sci-fi twist when we learn how the coin actually works and what was actually going on for the first half. I’m not sure I agree with the pacing choice and the shift in tone. I think the explanation works—I’ve never really objected to Doing In The Wizard—but I think it should have been saved for the climax of the novel, as the second half kinda feels like the big narrative has gotten spent and it’s a wandering dénouement. (Also, admittedly, I think I was more interested in the monkey’s paw wishing coin concept than in the many-worlds Sliders story.) I was gritting my teeth though several chapters where Ephraim is buddying up with Evil Nate, after the climatic-feeling scene where Evil Nate sexually harasses and then shoots Jena. We’re shown this guy is irredeemable; but then spend far too long trying to humanize him again before getting rid of him. There’s too much “many this isn’t so bad” with a guy who Ephraim WATCHED COMMIT MURDER.
The ending twist (that Zoe/Jena can use the controller) was also a bit of a cheat, because I couldn’t find foreshadowing to it anywhere. It makes things too easy to wrap up, and given the late introduction (and the fact that they had Nathaniel to fill that role), it felt like a dues ex machina.
Honestly, the design of the coin-controller combination has fridge logic issues. I see the value in a system where you need two users to prevent abuse; but that’s at odds with the dangers of world-hopping and the fact that if someone gets hurt, you’re stranded and can’t even call home. Also, the fact that the coin can still be used without the controller (but the controller can follow), just inaccurately, means that it doesn’t really have safeguards, just limitations. A better safeguard would be if the coin couldn’t work without the controller, and vice-verse, except that ANY authorized user could get the coin to bring them back to the “home” universe. I realize that there wouldn’t be a story in this case, but it would be a much more sensible design.
I’d love to read a series of “bonus vignettes” about the Ephraims who got swapped around by the wishes and then put back at the end, and what each of them made of the changes in their lives. The analog swapped from “good mom” to “alcoholic mom”, who I think was asleep in bed when he was switched back, probably was the Best Son Ever for some time after that, having gotten a month(?) of what might have been. The ones swapped through various relationship changes probably ended up in confusing but amusing situations repeatedly. This seems ripe for fanfiction, except that I still want Ecmyers to write it…
