Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi: well, that was odd

Furthermore 

by 

Tahereh Mafi

Alice Alexis Queensmeadow is 12 years old and the least magical girl in Ferenwood. At home a persons magic is directly correlated with their magic and Alice is paler than snow. While the townspeople never pay much attention to Alice she knows that her father doesn’t care what color she is or how much magic she has. He’ll always have her back. Until he disappears with nothing but a battered ruler in his pocket. For three years Alice waits for him to return but when an old classmate appears and tells her that her father can’t return they set out to find him together.

Characters

Alice: full disclosure, I was not sold on her in the beginning. 

I felt that she was terribly selfish and rather childish. But, she kind of grew on me. The more I think about it, the more I think that she wasn’t being all that selfish at all. It’s just that she had no attachment to Oliver, her traveling companion, for most of the book. Which I suppose was just odd to me because so many books just automatically make the protagonists like each other. If that makes sense. Normal books either establish a relationship before the book truly begins or rushes through the beginning to get to the ‘I’d be pissed if you died’ phase. Which isn’t bad per se, after all where are the stakes if the characters don’t care for each other? It’s just used so often that I was thrown for a loop when a book took the more realistic route of not being instant friends just because you survived a few terrors. All in all, Alice is good in my book. She could have been better sure but she was everything this book needed her to be.

Oliver: I kind of wish he’d been the protagonist. Y’all I can count on one hand the amount of main characters who have been good at lying. I get it, bad at lying is a good character flaw. It makes them ultimately a good person and leads to plot devices and comedy. But dang! I could do with a character who could get away with zingers. Oliver’s talent, his magical skill, is making people believe what he says. Which was awesome! But rather clichély turned into ‘how can I trust you when you always lie?!’ thing that always seems to happen. Poor Oliver. I did love how in the beginning Oliver knew everything and was always getting Alice out of trouble. By the end the tables have turned and Alice gets to save him some. It was adorable.

Father? This part is less analysis and more question. Was this fella ever given an actual name? it’s just a little odd to me that he was the point of the whole book and he doesn’t even have a name!

Likes

It’s just wacky: somebody on Goodreads described it as a modern-day Alice in Wonderland and in all honesty, they’re right. Everything makes no sense and the rules are as far from intuitive as you can get and it’s kind of amazing. Furthermore is a weird, weird world and I was half expecting playing card soldiers to show up. Personally, I’ve always preferred my adventures to have rules and, you know, make sense! But even I have to admit that sometimes it’s fun to escape to a world that is honestly upside down and sideways. At the very least you have to admire the author’s creativity. There’s no way my brain could come up with some of the crazier situations.

I rather liked the author’s little interruptions: yes the pulled me out of the story a little bit but I thought they were worth it. Every once in a while, the author of the story (we never figure out who it is) pops in like ‘hello me again! I hate to interrupt but I just thought I should clarify this bit about this character’s motivations. See, they’re a little annoyed with each other. Isn’t it precious? Alright back to the story!’

Okay, that’s not at all what it’s like but you get my drift. I enjoyed them but I do understand people’s annoyance with them but I think that could easily be fixed by putting these interruptions somewhere else. Footnotes maybe.

Dislikes

That ending was way too fast: I mean I was so close to the end and the goal seemed so far away that I was sure there was going to be a sequel. 

But then everything was wrapped up in maybe three pages. Which was completely unexpected. Everything seemed hopeless one minute, the next everything was fixed and happily ever after. It just seemed to easy.

Kind of bad timing: the whimsical, fairytale-prose style has never been my favorite. Sure, I like it in small doses and sometimes they can be downright awesome. But I’ve just read Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor. In comparison Furthermore just couldn’t compete.  Which logically speaking isn’t fair at all because Furthermore is a middle grade book by a completely different author and a whole host of other objections. But for me it was kind of difficult to go from Strange the Dreamer, which has some of the best whimsical prose, to Furthermore which is just good. So, bad timing on my part in all honesty.

Ultimately, Furthermore has some problems. I didn’t enjoy myself all the time and I definitely picked the wrong time to pick it up. But that’s my fault and no fault of the book’s. I think it’s a wonderful little middle-grade romp with pretty storytelling and imaginative settings. Heck! The characters even have something to teach people like old fairytales. So I’d recommend giving it a shot.