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Conjured

Sarah Beth Durst

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Apr 09, 2013 Jessica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: youngadult, fantasy

Okay, wow. Wow.wow.wow.wow.

Wow.

I know Sarah Beth Durst. I met her shortly after her first book (INTO THE WILD) and mine came out, and I've followed her wonderful career ever since. Every one of her books has been something different, and but they are always, ALWAYS, good.

And then came CONJURED.

Sweet fancy Moses.

I mean, this might very well be her best book yet. Much as I love ICE, there was something about this book that really went . . . okay, this book is off the rails. In a good way. It's won ...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Emma rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: from-publisher

Eve doesn't know anything about her past. No family. No home. Even her face has been changed with a series of surgeries.

All Eve knows for sure is that a madman is on the loose--a killer who uses magic to murder his targets. And she might be the key to solving the case. If she ever remembers.

Everyone is keeping secrets from her--maybe even her own mind. Recurring dreams of a carnival with tinny music and a sinister magician haunt her. Sometimes a storyteller is there spinning tales as she tries t Eve doesn't know anything about her past. No family. No home. Even her face has been changed with a series of surgeries.

All Eve knows for sure is that a madman is on the loose--a killer who uses magic to murder his targets. And she might be the key to solving the case. If she ever remembers.

Everyone is keeping secrets from her--maybe even her own mind. Recurring dreams of a carnival with tinny music and a sinister magician haunt her. Sometimes a storyteller is there spinning tales as she tries to sew buttons into Eve's skin. Eve can change the color of her eyes and make the birds printed on her wallpaper fly around her new room.

Protected by two witness protection agents and befriended by a boy who never lies, Eve will have to make sense of her past if she ever hopes to have a future of her own.

Conjured is a tense novel of suspense with bits of magic and character study thrown in. It is nowhere near as coherent as the jacket summary suggests. Readers expecting a linear story here will be disappointed.

Eve remembers nothing of her past and loses time to blackouts several times throughout the story. Her lack of memory is manipulated and exploited. These gaps and Eve's own confusion are crucial to the plot but they also create a significant distance between readers and Eve's characters. This gap narrows as the story progresses (and as Durst changes writing tense and person to reflect the changes) but it still makes for a very disorienting--and sometimes slow--beginning.

As her name suggests, Eve is an almost completely blank slate at the beginning of the story. Consequently her character often feels lacking in personality (since Eve doesn't even know her own personality really). That said Durst does an excellent job creating memorable secondary characters as both friends and foils to Eve. The setting and the premise are also fascinating.

This isn't a book for everyone but readers who enjoy clever writing and unique plot structures will be rewarded by a completely surprising and original novel as Conjured builds slowly to a shocking revelation and a conclusion that will have readers holding their breath until the dramatic finish.

Possible Pairings: Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby, Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey, The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson, Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler, Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin, The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff ...more

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Sep 12, 2013 Wealhtheow rated it liked it

Shelves: ya, pocmaincharacters, fantasy

Eve wakes up in a new body, on a new world. She's in Witness Protection hiding from a supernatural serial killer, but although she's apparently a very important witness, she's lost all her memories. She tries to piece her past together, with weird visions of a magical carnival as her only clues.

I like the concept a lot, but I was bothered by the fact that until the last two chapters, the reader has no idea at all what's going on. Then everything is explained in one big dump of text. ...more

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