Alchemedia: Portal

The main character is a blonde.

Hello, I’m Alchemilla, and today I’m going to talk about my first Nook purchase.

Portal

Imogen Rose

 

This book is available at both B&N and Amazon in digital copy for 99c, or around $10 for the physical version. (Just as a quick note, the Nook edition was really poorly formatted, and there were lots of punctuation errors, but I don’t know if that’s present in the print edition.) It is a young adult novel, and Imogen Rose’s first published work. You can find her website at www.imogenrose.com.

Come Find Me Two Years Ago... Six words that propelled ice hockey playing tomboy, Arizona, into an alternate dimension. She suddenly found herself in the past. In one moment she went from being an ice hockey playing teenager in New Jersey to a glamorous cheerleader in California. She found herself transported from a happy life with her dad, Dillard, to a new, strange one living with her mother whom she hates. Apparently it's a life she's always lived in. Everyone knows her as Arizona Darley, but she isn't. She is Arizona Stevens. As she struggles to find answers she is certain of one thing- that her mother Olivia, a brilliant physicist, is somehow responsible. . PORTAL is the story of the repercussions of Olivia Darley's attempt at creating a perfect world for herself and her children. Arizona's quest for answers threatens to undermine the seemingly perfect world that her mother has so carefully constructed. PORTAL is the first book of the Portal Chronicles. Fans of time travel, romance, and the supernatural will enjoy Arizona's quest for answers.
 

I'm going to start by saying "spoilers," but I really feel like that's a ridiculous thing to say after posting the description from Amazon.

Portal does exactly what it says on the tin (or the description) in that nothing that isn’t covered in said description happens. You may have noticed the “hook” at the end there. As she struggles to find answers she is certain of one thing- that her mother Olivia, a brilliant physicist, is somehow responsible. 

Pretty much that is the whole of the explanation you get. I understand that this is the first in a trilogy, but seriously, NOTHING HAPPENS in the whole of this book that in any way resolves the plot. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

"I hate you, mom!"

Anyway.

Let’s talk about the protagonist, Arizona.

Our introduction to Arizona is her remembering a play made in her last hockey game, rudely interrupted by perfume. Yeah, I don’t know how that works either.

Anyway, she explains to us how annoying her little sister is, how leather vs. fabric seating in her mother’s Hummer is somehow important enough to argue about, and how her mother wears Chanel black nail polish and has an “annoying” British accent.

Then, she introduces herself to the reader by saying that she is a tom boy, is on the hockey team, and wouldn’t describe herself as “pretty” and she hates her “full, wide lips.”

She then goes into great detail about how much she dislikes Olivia, her mother. The reasons are as follows: 1. “annoying” British accent, 2. Arizona was promised a growth spurt that has not happened, 3. her mom tells her that she is “so pretty!” 3. and she likes to have a clean house. What a bitch!

It’s pretty gross, actually.

Her cool dad, on the other hand (who she lives with) hasn’t cleaned house in eight months! “How cool is that!” she exclaims.

She also admits that she “did (her) very best to contribute to the battles” between her parents while they were married. What a peach.

Arizona goes on to explain how she hangs out with boys when she “wants things easy and uncomplicated” but hangs out with the girls “as much as possible” in order to fit in better.

But, girls, people. Girls talk about shopping. And we all know how annoying shopping is.

And then, this.

Minor Structural Damage.

“I consider myself a fairly normal teen, although I do have anger management issues when my mother is around. Perhaps issues is putting it mildly. It’s a huge problem, one that landed me in behavioral therapy, and almost on meds, after a huge overreaction by Mom to some minor structural damage to the house. Big deal. What are a few broken doors and bashed in walls in the grand scheme of life. I have to deal with the hatred I feel for her some way, right?”

Goodness, Arizona, why do you hate your mom so much? She must have done something terrible to you!

“I guess, simply put, I don’t like anything about her. She’s a pain.”

Oh. 

So, leaving aside the fact that Arizona is a sociopath who should probably still be in therapy, (and I am going to leave it aside, as the book completely does) what else is there to her?

OH SHIT! NO!!!

Not much, guys. She’s a tom boy. She hates pink. She wears a pony tail and doesn’t smile much. She hates her mom. That’s about it, man.

Over the course of the book, she discovers that she’s got a brother that she didn’t have in her other life, and gets herself a boyfrand!

Oh, and also, isn’t it weird that she’s suddenly in another life that is similar yet different from the one she knew? But who cares because 100 pages of BOYFRAND!!!

She does figure out that her mother had “something” to do with her being thrust into this different life, but doesn’t do anything with this information until this false sense of urgency due to the portal to her old life closing leads her to question her about it.

In this climax of the book, her mother and boyfriend urge her to do nothing instead of go back to her old life, and she agrees.

The choice to stay was the obvious one, but Arizona still acts like going “home” is the only thing to do.

It's kind of ridiculous, as she fits in quite well to her new life. She spends ages hanging out with and getting close to the other Arizona's friends and family. She joins the hockey team. Conveniently, her BFF from her old life made the transition too, so she doesn’t even have that reason to go back. She even seems to like her sister and mother, after she made a huge stink about hating them early in the book.

I found myself skimming page after page of uninteresting first person sections about Arizona and only really being interested in Olivia's brief sections. I have come to two conclusions about that. 1. The author clearly identified more with Olivia than Arizona, and made her a more interesting and sympathetic character and 2. Arizona was a purely passive player in the events of the book. As it said in the description, Olivia was “somehow responsible”. Arizona had nothing to do with the situation she found herself in, and really did next to nothing to change or resolve it. I can't say I understood Olivia, but I could at least feel that the author wanted us to identify with her.

”My work here is done.”

Arizona is a shallow and boring character who drives the plot simply by refusing to act. Olivia is a much more interesting character. I found myself wishing that the book had been about her.

There were a few significant plot holes. The largest and most confusing was when Arizona’s friend Simla was revealed to be an unlikely and frankly unmotivated antagonist. What changed? Nothing Arizona knew about and nothing that we, the reader, could identify, especially since we were treated to every passing thought in Arizona's head.

It also suffered from some dropped plot points. I'm not going to say that every single thing that is ever mentioned in passing should become important later, but making a big deal about something only to drop it later is annoying. Once, I'll bite, but it happened time and time again in this book.

OMG I have to take my little sister to school and I don't know the way, oh 2 pages later, never mind, dad will take her. I'm a cheerleader and Oh noz I don't know how to cheer! No, that's okay, I'll just sit out and quit the team and everyone will still love me. Uh oh! My brother and boyfrand are going to be mad that I tried out for hockey, except that they weren't, at all.

These red-herring non-conflicts are distracting and annoying, because they are the only kind of real adversity that Arizona ever has to face. As I mentioned, the plot was driven by Arizona’s inaction.

To sum up, yeah, no. I paid less than a dollar for this book. Did I get my money’s worth? I don’t know, I guess so.

Olive Oyl remembers.

It may go without saying, but I won’t be reading the following two books in this series, and I won’t be picking up a print edition to add to my library. I didn’t feel ripped off in the pocket book, but it did take me a good 3-4 hours to read, and I didn’t get much of a return on that investment.

I’ll give this book a (generous) D for “Doesn’t anybody remember that Arizona is a violent sociopath???”