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Monday, March 11, 2013

Book Review: Sophia: Within, by Jordana Lizama



            Self-publishing a first novel is generally a bad idea. This week’s book, Sophia: Within, by Jordana Lizama, confirms the rule. While the plot is interesting and even suspenseful at times, a combination of weak characterization, poor pacing, and lack of technical skill drags the story down. These are the marks of inexperience, which in my mind would have been much improved if the author had written another novel prior to this one.

Beautiful cover art, but the shiny blue thing never happens in the book
            Seventeen year old Sophia is a massive introvert who (despite the fact introversion and extroversion are mostly fixed elements of the human personality) only became that way after her father’s premature death. As winter closes in on her hometown, it brings with it an epidemic of depression which (despite the fact that the holidays are the most common times to experience symptoms of depression) is decried as extremely unusual. Mysterious new boy Alec offers Sophia an explanation for the town’s—and her mother’s—illness: a group of ancient magical beings called the Aged Men, who’ll suck all the happiness from her town unless Sophia gives them what they want. Turns out, our heroine has the spirit of an ancient nymph imprisoned in her soul, a being with immense potential for good or evil. If Sophia can’t learn to control her unwelcome roommate, her life and everything she cares about could be destroyed.

            But Sophia herself isn’t a very interesting character. In fact, she’s a classic Mary Sue. She’s got no flaws and no life goals. The author tells us that, even at age ten ‘She was very mature for her age, or, at least, that was what her family and friends thought’. We see she’s ‘embarrassed by her intelligence’ and ‘possessed an exceptional memory’. When she dances at a party, people tell her they can’t keep their eyes off her. She is admired by almost everyone she meets, except the villains, despite the fact her character is incredibly anti-social, and no character honestly criticizes her once. Sophia’s perfection may make the author happy, but it’s so fake it’ll make the readers slightly queasy.

             Even though she’s seventeen, Sophia has no thoughts about her future. Normal seventeen year old high school students think about applying to colleges. The only hint we see as to her future goals is when she spots her copy of Little Women and thinks she’s like Jo (the independent girl who leaves her hometown to have a career), but she hopes to one day be more like Beth (the daughter who dies without accomplishing anything in her life). Since Beth is also a kind of Mary Sue, this makes sense, although I find it disturbing that any modern girl would actually want this. But this thread is abruptly dropped for no reason.

            Poor pacing is another problem in Sophia: Within. Chapter Two is entirely devoted to Sophia walking home from school with her brother. There’s tons of needless description of her neighborhood, paragraphs about why she can’t drive yet, that could be summed up into a single line: ‘Sophia and her brother walked home’. Sophia can’t even go to a party without having to describe getting invited, shopping for an outfit, eating at the mall food court, doing her nails, worrying about her outfit, talking about the party . . . and chapters pass without anything happening.

            Any scene that doesn’t advance the plot of a story should probably be cut, but Sophia: Within is riddled by long paragraphs of Sophia lying on her bed and conversations where she informs her brother she’s going to the park. That conversation can be reduced to ‘Sophia told her brother she was going to the park’. We don’t need the scene with the dialogue unless Sophia’s brother is actively preventing her from going to the park, thus putting another obstacle between her and success.

            The best fiction constantly puts larger and larger barriers between characters and success. Sophia: Within does the opposite. Alec, the romance interest, constantly assures Sophia that they’ll be able to defeat the Aged Men invading her hometown. Alec tells Sophia not to do any research on nymphs on her own, so she finds a website about nymphs . . . and decides not to look at it. Even when she gets into a fight about Alec, she decides to make up with him for no reason other than liking him too much. And after the final climatic battle, we still get pages and pages of Sophia being happy with her family. Twenty percent of a novel is too long for a character to be truly happy.

            Finally, the lack of technical skill. When Sophia’s finally succeeded in controlling the nymph, ‘She smiled; she was so proud of herself for doing it well.’ Show, don’t tell, is a basic maxim in most creative writing classes. Here, we get sentences telling us that Sophia’s hair was ‘neither straight nor curly’. In other words, she had hair. Sophia looks in a mirror and, thinking about how she doesn’t look pretty, says “Maybe my eyes are an exception.” Real people don’t do thinks like this.

            We’re told that Alec is ‘young of age, but there was a great force inside him’, which rings with sexual innuendo. And at the end of the prologue, we get ‘This is the story of Sophia, a frightened and lonely girl, who is having trouble accepting a battle she knows nothing about but has been chosen nonetheless.’ Thank you, author, for telling me this, because I wouldn’t have gotten this in any other way. By the end, Sophia and Alec had ‘truly begun to heal; to be young and joyful.’ We know they’re young. We can see from the description that they’re joyful. We don’t need to be told that the ending is happy. We want to see it for ourselves.

            Within Sophia: Within lies a potentially good story—but the author lacks the experience to tell it well. I’d prescribe writing classes and a complete overhaul. For YA paranormal romance, I’ll give it two stars out of five. As a novel, one and a half.

 You can download Sophia: Within here
           


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