Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery, Fantasy, Horror
Content: Clean


When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out.

Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family - before it's too late... 

It took me forever to finish Cuckoo Song simply because it wasn't compelling me to pick it up and read it. I kept finding other things that I would rather do and that's when a book usually ends up on the abandoned book pile. I liked this book, so I stuck it out. I can't really explain why I wasn't drawn into it as much as I would have liked to have been. Maybe it was the author's writing style, I don't know.

I don't really want to say anything about the plot. One of the reasons I wanted to read this was because the description intrigued me, so I really don't want to take the experience of unraveling the mystery away from anyone. I wanted to find out what horrifying thing had happened to Triss. I think once I found out I lost interest a little, even though the rest of the story was good, I wanted the book to get to the conclusion a lot sooner than it did. The best things about this book were the relationships that formed and were repaired. And also if you like creepy dolls, then there are some in here.

The first things to shift were the doll's eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss's face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak. 

I think the author did a good job with the dolls. They ramped up the creepy factor which I liked. This is the first book I've ever read by Frances Hardinge, but I think I can say that she has a uniquness to her writing that I haven't encountered elsewhere. I'm not sure if I will read anything else she has written yet, but I'm definitely not crossing her off my list.



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