Midwinterblood

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He brings the King and Queen of the painting to life time and time again; each time they meet they portray a different aspect of love, as mother and son, as siblings, as artist and child, always close but never quite meeting as the lovers they swore they would one day be again until this last, seventh encounter. I sa svakom novom pričom, polako popunjavam praznine i gomilu pitanja koja su mi se stvorila u glavi. Although I read a great many books for sheer entertainment value, it's coming across an author like Marcus Sedgwick that reminds me how very formulaic many YA books tend to be. Ultimately, Midwinterblood reminded me of Romeo and Juliet and The Lottery with a dash of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, minus all plot and with poorly drawn characters whose sole identifying characteristics are relationships through seven generations. The end was a bit abrupt, but for me, it worked quite a bit considering how Sedgwick crafted this book.

The prose is as crisp as ever and the different ways the story of love and sacrifice plays out inventive. This was a bit of an unusual YA novel, there was nothing really YA about it (except maybe the insta-love). I spent the day leading up to my book club discussion trying to figure out if I thought it was good-weird or bad-weird, but in the end, it was just. And I get that, this was extremely weird and the kind of book that makes very little sense until the end.There's very little chance that younger readers will care for his writing even if they do manage to understand it. I sada kada sam došla do kraja i sve povezala i složila ovu slagalicu, pomislila sam da sam na početku. Once I got about 50 pages into MIDWINTERBLOOD, I was hooked and read the rest of the book – it’s rather short, just so you know – in one sitting. This section is loaded with suspense and is chillingly beautiful as Sedgewick uses evocative language to describe the disturbing events which are going on.

As they die, they remember all their lives together and the perfect moments they have shared as they become one with each other in eternal love. His books have been shortlisted for many awards, including The GUARDIAN CHILDREN'S FICTION AWARD, the BLUE PETER BOOK AWARD, the CARNEGIE MEDAL and the EDGAR ALLAN POE AWARD.

Even though the idea of reincarnation and epic love has been done to death, I was still intrigued by it. It is one of those books in which people are linked together in different ways but Marcus Sedgwick develops this style into something I have never read before and love!

I read Midwinterblood in one sitting, I still can't think of a single thing I didn't like, and it kind of changed my life. The one interesting thing is the way Eric and Merle's relationship changes in each generation, but this is something that weakens the book, too. The book travels back in time telling the story of Merle and Eric's previous reincarnations via short stories, which means we see their characters in many different roles and come across many different facets of their personality.Well, the first few pages switch awkwardly between past and present tense, but after that the writing is very good. This isn't something I would have picked up without the book club impetus, and this is one of those times when I really could have lived without that extra push. When I read his chilling gothic mystery White Crow last year, it freaked me out--I couldn't believe the intensity of the emotional pitch, or how the persuasively suggestive writing played tricks with my perception. A young journalist named Eric arrives on a remote island, where it is rumored that the people live forever. It’s a circuitous book that makes sense only if you read the entire book from beginning to end, taking note of every instance of their lives, especially noting the very last vignette and the happenings of the beginning (well, it is the beginning – the beginning is the end is the beginning is the end is a Smashing Pumpkins song with some more endings).