The Conductors

Serie/Series: Nej/No.
Författare/Author: Nicole Glover.
Genre: Fantasy, historia/history.
Språk/Language: Engelska/English.
Sidor/Pages: 420.

(English below)

Handling: Hetty Rhodes växte upp förslavad på ett plantage tillsammans med sin mamma och syster. Men till slut lyckas hon ta sig därifrån och bosätter sig i Philadelphia, där hon träffar på Benjy. Tillsammans börjar de hjälpa förslavade att fly genom att bli "konduktörer" på den underjordiska tågrälsen. Förutom att hjälpa människor att fly till friheten tar de sig också an olika uppdrag, allt från att hitta försvunna personer till att lösa mordmysterier.
När en av deras nära vänner hittas mördad börjar Hetty och Benjy leta efter svar, men ju mer de letar desto fler frågor och mysterier stöter de på. Paret tvingas möta folks mörka sidor, även bland folk de trodde att de kände...

Min åsikt om boken: Jag hade hoppats en del på den här boken, för den låter ju intressant. Det är mysterier, folks kamp för frihet, magi och allt möjligt men tyvärr... Boken var ingen höjdare. Jag känner att något saknas. Jag får inte riktigt lära känna karaktärerna och det är väldigt många att hålla reda på, som dessutom har liknande bakgrund. Man får inte riktig tid på sig att skapa ett band till någon av dem. Mordmysteriet kändes inte så spännande eller mystiskt heller för den delen. Jag saknade atmosfären av mysterium och olösta gåtor. Allt kändes ganska platt.
Det var också lite svårt att hänga med i magin, i alla fall i början. Den magi ("celestial magic") som Hetty använder är genom att "rita upp" sigill av stjärntecken/stjärnbilder i luften (eller sy in i kläder) men sedan finns det en annan sort som bara kallas för "Sorcery" och vad skillnaden var fick man aldrig reda på. Den enda man fick veta var att "Sorcery" utövades med trollspön och det fick bara vita personer inneha, men utöver det vet jag inte skillnaden. Men det verkade som att "Socery" var mer kraftfullt.

Sedan hittade jag flera jättekonstiga meningar, som jag antar är felskrivna? Exempel på det: "Hetty squinted into the light to see, hoping to be wrong. Hoping that else stood in Benjy's place, and he was in the crowd instead" (sid 343). Ska det vara "Hoping SOMEONE else stood in Benjy's place"? För det känns som att nåt saknas i den meningen. Den låter väldigt konstig. Nästa exempel (mitt i en lång mening): "... horrified at what she saw and indignant that he would allow himself to pushed around like that" (sid 358). Ska det vara "to BE pushed around like that?". Ett sista exempel: "The only sign that had hadn't moved since she fallen asleep, was the stack of papers around him" (sid 385). Ska det vara "that HE hadn't moved"? Och borde det inte vara "since she fell asleep"? Inte för att jag är expert på engelska men det låter udda. Alltså, antingen har man inte korrekturläst boken alls (för det var såna här konstigheter på var och varannan sida) eller så är det nån sorts dialekt som jag inte fattar, men det känns ju inte heller rätt. Alla som läser ska väl kunna förstå handlingen? Det här drog definitivt ner på läsupplevelsen. Så överlag var boken ganska medelmåttig. Den var inte jättedålig men inte heller bra, den kunde ha varit mycket bättre.

Den får 2.5 av 5💀 i betyg.

Mitt favoritcitat från boken:

"The magic Hetty's mother taught her was a mixture of lore brought over from Africa, from the West Indies, and even from the native peoples of this land. Mingled together, it created a magic system that was greater than the sum of its parts. It incorporated traditions that found ways to brew magic with herbs, to enchant candles for protection, to use song to rejuvenate, and most important, to develop sigils from the constellations".
Sid 80.

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Story: Hetty Rhodes grew up enslaved at a plantation together with her mom and sister. But eventually she managed to get away from there and settles down in Philadelphia, where she meets Benjy. Together they start help enslaved people to flee by becoming "conductors" on the underground railroad. But besides helping people flee to freedom they also take on different missions, from finding missing people to solving mysteries.
When one of their close friends is found murdered, Hetty and Benjy starts looking for answers but they only seem to find more questions and mysteries. The couple is forced to face people's dark sides, even among people they thought they knew...

My opinion about the book: I had high hope in this book because it really does seem interesting with mysteries, people's struggle for freedom, magic and so on but... It wasn't that great. I feel like something is missing. I didn't really get to know the characters and it's a lot of people to keep track of, with the same background on top of that. I didn't get that bond with any of them. The murder mystery wasn't really that suspenseful or mysteries for that matter. It lacked that atmosphere of mystery and unsolved riddles. It felt pretty flat.
It also felt hard to get a grip on the magic, at least in the beginning. The magic that Hetty uses ("celestial magic") is by "drawing" sigils of zodiac signs/star constellations in the air (or sewn onto clothes) but then there's another sort of magic that is simply just called "Sorcery" and what the difference is I don't really know. The only thing that was told in the book was that "Sorcery" was used with wands and that only white people could use them, but other than that I have no idea. But it seemed like "Sorcery" was more powerful.

I also found really strange sentences that I guess was misspelled? One exemple of that is: "Hetty squinted into the light to see, hoping to be wrong. Hoping that else stood in Benjy's place, and he was in the crowd instead" (page 343). Is it supposed to be "Hoping SOMEONE else stood in Benjy's place"? Because it feels like something is missing in that sentence. It sounds strange. Another exempel (from in the middle of a long sentence) is:"... horrified at what she saw and indignant that he would allow himself to pushed around like that" (page 358). Is it supposed to be "to BE pushed around like that?". Last exemple: "The only sign that had hadn't moved since she fallen asleep, was the stack of papers around him" (page 385). Is it supposed to be "that HE hadn't moved"? And shouldn't it be "since she fell asleep"? Not that I'm an expert in english but it sounds weird. Either someone didn't proof read the book at all (I found many of these strange sentences on every other page) or it's written on some kind of dialect that I don't get, but that doesn't seem right. Everyone reading should be able to understand the story, right? This definitely brought down the reading experience quite a bit. So overall the book was pretty mediocre. It wasnt really bad but not great either, could have been so much better.

I give it 2.5 of 5💀

My favorite quote from the book:

"The magic Hetty's mother taught her was a mixture of lore brought over from Africa, from the West Indies, and even from the native peoples of this land. Mingled together, it created a magic system that was greater than the sum of its parts. It incorporated traditions that found ways to brew magic with herbs, to enchant candles for protection, to use song to rejuvenate, and most important, to develop sigils from the constellations".
Sid 80.