Jane, Unlimited
by Kristin Cashore
Penguin Young Readers Group, 2017
Jane, Unlimited is a new adult SF/F novel from the author of the Graceling series. It is an odd book, and manages to jump the shark at least three times.
Before Jane's aunt Magnolia died, she had made Jane promise that if she ever received an invitation to Tu Reviens -- a mysterious mansion on a mysterious island -- she would go. She receives an invitation. She goes.
Tu Reviens is a large house made out of the scavenged pieces of other mansions, full of priceless art, odd characters, and a basset hound. To add to the chaos the household is gearing up for their annual gala, a big party of uncertain purpose. Jane settles in to enjoy her time the best she can, a task made much easier when she discovers that the house has a full selection of woodworking equipment -- allowing her to pursue her hobby of making umbrellas -- and some hints about the past life of her aunt Magnolia. Almost anything else I could tell you would be a spoiler.
The book contains a long intro followed five alternate endings. Each ending presents a different view of the house and its residents, and is presented as if this were a Choose Your Own Adventure book; it's not, read the whole thing. But Jane makes different choices at key points in the narrative and has five very different adventures.
Unfortunately, the different choices take off in very different tones. One choice leads into a rather light mystery adventure, one to a horror novella, one into a fantasy, one into science fiction. One is fairly realistic, one is silly, one is silly science fiction, and so forth. I'm not certain that Kristin Cashore does silly very well (although it's a bit like Mel Gilden), but she is a good writer, and the first 175 pages are great. then you hit the first great tone shift, and YMMV. Given that this is a 450 page book, there's all-too-much risk that you won't especially like long stretches of it.
I suspect that I would have enjoyed this book a good bit more if I had read something like the above paragraph and knew what was coming. However, there is the perhaps insurmountable problem that each story is heavy with foreshadowing, and you cannot trust the foreshadowing to apply in a satisfying way -- at least, I did not find it satisfying -- in that the worlds of the sections just don't fit together to make a satisfying whole. It is also very odd to have a book with five different mutually exclusive endings, although I think the author handled that better. Overall, this was worth reading as an interesting experimental form with interesting characters and some quite engaging stretches.
SciFiQuest 3023:Robot on the Mantelpiece