SILVER IN THE BLOOD by Jessica Day George (Review)

(And I rounded up. I would have given it 1.5 stars.)

STATUS: Stand-alone? I think? Major plot points resolved at the end, but could extend into a series.

AUTHOR: Jessica Day George

GENRE: Young Adult Historical Fiction / Romance / Supernatural (in that order)

PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury USA

LOVE TRIANGLE: Not really. George sets up a sort of love-square at the outset (Dacia has three suitors) but it's clear that only of them is sticking around.

PAGES: 368

Truth Talk: I requested the e-ARC from Netgalley based on (1) the cover and (2) the first line of the description which said that this book was great for fans of Libba Bray and Cassandra Clare. I don’t think I even read the description because the fantasy-inspired cover and “if you like” authors were enough to sell me. [Sidebar: I think that if I had read the description, I’d be even more disappointed.]

Disclaimer: I’ve never read any of Jessica Day George’s other works, I didn’t go in with a prior knowledge of her writing style or typical subject matter.

But…this book was just not for me. For the first 1/3 of the novel, I was convinced that the e-ARC had been mis-categorized and that it was actually a middle-grade novel. But let’s break it down.

Basic Plot Line: American-Romanian heiresses Dacia and Louisa live a sheltered, frivolous and, all things considered, shallow life among Manhanttan’s upper crust. They spend their days (indeed, this is the entirety of the first 1/3 of the novel) obsessing over fashionable dresses (usually from Paris), their own appearance, cute and wealthy boys, and the latest gossip in their social circle. But, after they turn 17, they are whisked away to Romania, the land of their ancestors, to meet their mysterious relations and learn about their family. Secrets are disclosed, shenanigans ensue.

Basic Premise: The Florescu family are Shapeshifters – each family member belongs to a “branch” which reflects their shifting ability: The Claw (shift into wolves), The Wing (shift into bats) or The Smoke (shift into, well, smoke, but are also the strongest). Because of this magical ability, they serve the Dracula family – yes, as in that Dracula family. All of this is disclosed in the plot synopsis, so, no spoilers. And this, to me, is a really cool premise: in Stoker’s original novel [more on that in a moment] Dracula has a weird power over the wolves, and I like that George is kind of playing with this idea, providing an explanation as to why he has that power. The bats and the smoke are also purposeful, I think, since Stoker’s vampire can transform into both. Also, George’s novel is written in a semi-epistolary fashion as, I would hope, an homage to Stoker.
There’s also the fact that Dacia and Louisa could be versions of Lucy (the “looser,” more flirtatious female) and Mina (the pure, moral center of the group).

So, lots of potential here.

Potential, though, is the key word. In the end, while I appreciated the premise, it was a bit of a struggle for me to finish this one.

(1) First—let me get my geeky, English-major quibble out of the way. I fully realize that the amount of people who would notice, or care, about this is minimal, but here goes:

ONE—Bram Stoker published Dracula on May 26^th 1897 and was published in the US in 1899. While it did express and reflect a lot of Victorian anxieties at the turn of the century, it wasn’t wildly popular and Stoker didn't make a lot of money on it. (It really only became a cult classic once the movies started being made.)

TWO—Silver in the Blood opens in late April 1897 – about one month before the publication of Stoker’s novel.

THREE—On June 11, 1897, one of Dacia’s beaus – the American – surprises the group in Romania with the news that he has “read a novel….A terrible, sickening work of trash!” which discusses a Romanian family who “are monsters. Literal monsters. As well as having the power to summon beasts like wolves and bats. Their name is Dracula.” Which means that the American – even allowing for the fact that he is summering in Paris – must have managed to get his hands on a copy of Stoker’s novel as soon as it was released, read the entire thing, and then traveled from Paris to Romania AND tracked down Dacia and her family/group – all in 16 days, in a time before phones, email, and the internet.

No. Just no.

Again, I realize that very few people would realize this, but it REALLY bothered me. The timeline just doesn’t work, and it doesn’t seem like a hard thing to fix – simply move the plot of the novel to 1898, or 1899. As it is, bringing in Stoker and his novel just seems forced.

(2) There are 447 exclamation points in this novel. (That’s my best counting approximation.)

I feel like that sums up my issue with the writing style: it wasn’t bad per se, it was just very…exclamatory. I once had an English teacher tell me to use them sparingly in writing of any kind. She had some pithy, witty saying that succinctly summed up the advice, which I’ve long since forgotten, but the overall message remained me. The dialogue in this novel I mostly questions and exclamations – people ask, and they reply with (I imagine) raised eyebrows and shocked expressions.

(3) Dacia’s love interest is called “Lord Johnny.” For some reason, this just really bugged me. If you have a Lord in front of your name, you wouldn’t follow it with a casual nickname like Johnny. You’d follow it with your last name – this, to me, would be like calling Lord Byron “Lord Georgie.” You just wouldn’t do it.

(4) One of the main reasons I was so disappointed in/frustrated with this book was it’s discussion – or lack thereof, really – with monstrosity. There was SUCH an opportunity here to really have Dacia and Lou grapple with what it means to be “a monster,” but there was absolutely none of that. These are girls, after all, who are socialites and heiresses – they’re spoiled and vain and shallow, and then they’re faced with larger issues than they’ve even dreamed possible: not only does magic exist in the world, but they’re a part of it. Not only are they a part of the magical world, but their family is being used as the “muscle” in a political coup.

But instead, the girls remain focused inward – they only think and care about how it affects them and immediately impacts their lives.
Example: soon after Dacia’s first shift (and I think she only shifts twice in the whole book), during which she becomes the “leader of the pack,” this is what she says:

“Will was not half so dashing and handsome as Lord Johnny, but he was from an old and wealthy family and was currently considered the best catch in New York. And, with his artistic temperament, he was far less boring that most New York bachelors. She’d even fancied herself in love with him, though really she was in love with the idea of him: rich, admired, and artistic.   He would have made an eminently suitable husband, but Dacia could no longer be an eminently suitable wife. Because of her mother’s legacy, this wolf that hid within her, Will would note – could not – have anything to do with her. She thought of his ravings at Bran about the monstrousness of the Dracula family and felt sick. They weren’t the monsters: she was.”

She is literally in a position of power—but all she can think about is her love life and how this will affect her marriage prospects.

See Also: “I always wanted to be a leader, but of society, not of this. I see how childish that it all was; everything in my life was just a stupid game until now. I only I could have been a fairy-tale queen, in a beautiful palace, with nothing to do but dance and be beautiful. Now I am a queen of darkness and fear and terror.”

SIGH. I just….And, yes. Dacia does come around at the end, confidently declaring to Mihai that she is “not a monster.” But there’s no internal journey, no reflection – just a sudden realization and everything is okay. There’s no engagement with what that means, who’s truly a monster, nothing.

Well, Dacia does realize that if anyone is a monster, it’s Mihai – who, while trying to coerce Dacia into marrying him, threatens to rape Lou and make Dacia watch. Which…why did you have to go there Jessica Day George? WHY?

(5) Which leads me to my final issue with this book:  I couldn’t connect with any of the characters in the book, or even seen them as real people. To me, they read like melodramatic caricatures – I half expected Mihai to tie Dacia to the train tracks and twirl his mustache while maniacally cackling. The majority of the characters are also just unlikable – from Lady Ioana, who we’re supposed to dislike, to Radu and Aunt Kate who could have been complex characters but who just fall flat and come off as weak and spineless. Even Lou’s mother is unlikable – she literally abandons her daughter out of allegiance to the family; at least Dacia’s mother is pregnant back in New York; she’s not evil so much as simply absent.

The main characters are, clearly, Dacia and Lou: but I couldn’t even like them. Dacia is the super-spoiled, whiny, annoying one – the one who is always concerned with her appearance and who has lines that say things like, “Now that she was dressed in one of her Parisian gowns, things didn’t seem so bad.” I expected her to grow over the course of the novel, or at least be humbled and come to realize some deeper truths; but, unfortunately, while she is temporarily humbled (mainly while being threatened with sexual violence by Mihai), at the end of the novel, she returns to her earlier, flirtatious, shallow self, overly excited by the prospect of traveling the world – that is, Paris to go shopping – with her rich, handsome soon-to-be-fiance.

But most disappointing was Lou. Lou started out as the shy, insecure girl who felt overshadowed by her more vivacious, albeit less curvaceous, cousin. Out of all the characters, I had the highest hopes for her: I wanted her journey to be the most poignant, the most significant. And to some extent it was: upon learning that, not only was she a Shifter, but The Smoke (and therefore, somehow, the most powerful), she does feel different. See, for example:

“For the first time in her life, Lou felt beautiful. She felt swift and light, as though she’d lost the heavy weights that had been keeping her tied to the ground. Her terror of the night before had been pushed to the back of her mind, which was now largely filled with memories of what it had been like to slip through the air, flying above them all.”

Again, SIGH. I’m all for transformation, but this happened instantaneously. As in, one moment Lou was shy and feeling unattractive and frumpy, and the text, she’s 100% comfortable in her own skin. It’s like those old sex-ed/health education books which glowingly describe puberty as this transcendent, transformative experience which causes girls to “blossom” overnight.

But, even with this new confidence, I don’t feel like Lou really changed: just before the climactic scene, Lou is drugged – not only is she effectively paralyzed, but this mystical, magical drug (which is never fully explained, at least not in the ARC I read) forces her to shift into the Smoke, and it takes all her willpower to stay coalesced. While she does float around eavesdropping on her grandmother and Mihai, and does manage to communicate some of their plans to Dacia, she’s still largely ineffectual. She’s confined to her immaterial form and doesn’t have control over the change: towards the end, it’s kind of implied that she just kind of fades away, having used her strength to help Dacia.

Even when she gets possession of her faculties back, she’s still lacking power and agency. She does volunteer to confront Lady Ioana, who has fled with Lou’s mother and the other members of the Wing after having lost the battle, but accomplishes nothing. Lady Ioana shuts her down and puts her in her place, and Lou, chastened, floats meekly back to her soon-to-be-fiance to buy gowns with Dacia and go back to Hungary to visit his family (without being engaged – scandalous!).

So, yeah. This book just wasn’t for me…I’m not sure if it’s part of a series, but since it does end rather neatly, I have little-to-no desire to pick-up the sequels, if they exist.