TITLE: Conjured
AUTHOR: Sarah Beth Durst
GENRE: YA Fantasy
PUBLISHED: 2013, Bloomsbury Walker
FORMAT: Digital ARC via Netgalley; 370 pages
ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR: Vessel
Eve remembers nothing about her past. Her only clues are strange, often frightening scenes from her nightmares — fragmented memories of a storyteller weaving twisted tales and a magician whose act is more dangerous than it seems. But she knows that her origins are tied to a series of brutal murders and missing teenagers, and that the killer would do anything to find her. Even with a new face and the protection of a special branch of the Witness Protection Program, Eve is in danger every day, especially because of her own volatile magic…
Earlier this year I fell head over heels in love with Sarah Beth Durst’s incredible high fantasy novel Vessel, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw Conjured up for request on Netgalley. I was completely enthralled by the premise, which promised this awesome magical murder mystery with creepy circus moments. You may think that’s a bizarre combination to send a girl’s heart racing, but I like most anything that includes magic and danger in the same sentence so this was a no-brainer for me. Plus I like to be creeped out once in a while, and Conjured certainly does have its eerie moments. While I don’t have the same breathless love for this book that I do for Vessel, I still liked it and it was a solid read for me.
I liked Eve, but I liked the mystery of Eve even more. I appreciated that her amnesia didn’t make her into the kind of character that just stumbles along wherever the plot takes her. Oftentimes it seems that when characters lose their memory, the author uses it as a handy vehicle to dump all kinds of world building and backstory into the plot. But in this instance, the author turns Eve’s blank past into a catalyst for a hundred other questions you want to find the answers to. You know from the beginning that she’s important, otherwise they wouldn’t be so adamant about protecting her from the killer. But what is Eve’s role in the case? Is she a victim, or an accomplice, or both? I was happy to see Eve taking matters into her own hands, even when her protectors would have preferred for her to be herded around like a sheep. And while she does want to know what happened to her in the past, and who she used to be, Eve doesn’t let her amnesia define her. She slowly reinvents herself, or I guess I should say rediscovers herself, and learns new things along the way.
The magic was interesting, as was the surprise element of multiple worlds outside our own. But I was a bit put off by Eve’s relationship with Zach, and I didn’t warm up to him all that much even though I know I was supposed to find him adorable and quirky. Normally I’m all about the adorable and quirky, but he just didn’t click with me and I can’t explain why. I wasn’t a fan of the means by which Eve was able to share her magic with Zach — won’t go into it cause it may be considered a spoiler — but I one thing I did like about these two was that they worked very well together. They were a good team, even if I didn’t buy into their romance at all.
Perhaps my favorite parts of the book were Eve’s nightmares. That probably sounds crazy too, but like I said above, I like a little creepiness in my life! Err, as long as it’s not actually IN my life. I don’t mind reading about it. The dream sequences were exceptionally eerie and served to make the mystery even more compelling as a whole. Every time Eve had another nightmare, I was always left desperately wanting to know what it all meant and how the puzzle pieces fit together. Clues are scattered throughout her dreams, fragments of old memories that she lost before the story even began. I enjoyed trying to figure it all out. I admit that I was kept guessing through almost all of the story, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the ending or the way the main conflict was resolved; I felt a little bit disappointed, like all that build-up was for a lackluster conclusion. I was especially discomfited by Zach’s part of the ending, which only made my existing unease with his character even worse.
RATING: 3/5
A solid read with a mystery wrapped up in strange magic and a bit of journeying between worlds. I enjoyed both the creepiness and the process of trying to put together all the clues to Eve’s forgotten past, but found some aspects of the plot disappointing and didn’t think much of the romance. I liked this book, but I wasn’t entirely crazy about it, or at least not as crazy as I am over Vessel. (Have I talked that one up enough?? Why aren’t you reading it yet??) Overall, despite how problematic I found some of it to be, I still had a positive experience with Conjured.