Chime

Today’s post is on ‘Chime’ by Franny Billingsley. It is 361 pages long and is published by Dial. The cover is beautiful with a young woman; it is the main character, she is looking at the reader, with waves and dead hands around her reaching for her. The intended reader is female young adult and that is pretty much all who are going to enjoy it. There is no language, no sex, no drug use but there is underage drinking but other than that there is nothing to make parents worried. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- Before Briony's stepmother died, she made sure Briony blamed herself for all the family's hardships. Now Briony has worn her guilt for so long it's become a second skin. She often escapes to the swamp, where she tells stories to the Old Ones, the spirits who haunt the marshes. But only witches can see the Old Ones, and in her village, witches are sentenced to death. Briony lives in fear her secret will be found out, even as she believes she deserves the worst kind of punishment.
Then Eldric comes along with his golden lion eyes and mane of tawny hair. He's as natural as the sun, and treats her as if she's extraordinary. And everything starts to change. As many secrets as Briony has been holding, there are secrets even she doesn't know.

Review- I enjoyed this book but I have some problems with it. The biggest problem is I forgot things about the story between readings. I would forget where the characters where, what was going on, and this is not helped by the narration. The narration is jumpy, it goes from present to past and maybe to the future. The villains are ununderstandable. I did not know why the one boy wants and hates Briony and her stepmother is just a raging thing that neither Briony or the reader understands. The love story is not bad but not really interesting. I think that is because Briony is crazy, I think that everything she sees, everything she talks to is not there. The title comes from the Chime Child who can tell who is a witch and who is not. But Briony does not think that she is a witch because of the Chime Child but because her stepmother tells her that she is. It does not help that Briony does not have memories about some important details and even in the reveal I was just confused about what was going on. The only thing that I really got was this that people who are small and fearful will jump at anyone who is different to explain why children die. The writing itself is very good and easy to read but I think that Billingsley just did not have enough help with the narrative problems of her story.

I give this Three out of Five stars. I get nothing for this review, I borrowed this book from my local library and I read it for an assignment for grad school.