Marstown: the beginning

by Lee Michaels

Samantha Symanski's mother told her they'd be safer when she dragged them from the life they knew in the Baltimore/Washington metro area to a small town in the center of Wisconsin. But when her new boyfriend is attacked and things start to go bump in the night, she wonders if it is the only lie her mother told her. Samantha suddenly finds herself fighting forces she cannot see, as well as an attraction to the school's outcast, Levi Mauer, who has secrets of his own.

456 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 2014

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a fan of fantasy of any kind. Combine a YA urban fantasy with a backdrop of my hometown and we have a recipe for a book I can't possibly ignore. While I enjoyed reading Marstown, especially for the mystery element which certainly kept me guessing and the familiar setting of Marshfield, Wi, I felt that Marstown had a lot of potential that wasn't written as well as it could've been; though I can admit that that is more of a personal opinion and shouldn't sway a prospective reader. I did have an issue with the characters who I felt were terribly two-dimensional and often unrealistic. Having been a teenage girl I couldn't stand the interactions of Samantha and her friends, feeling that while calling one another sl*t or b*tch isn't unrealistic in our current culture, the frequent use of such terms bordered on trying too hard to make them sound hip and young. It isn't that I feel that a book should be written clean of language often considered obscene (I think it is typically more realistic when such language is included), but that I didn't feel the language was used correctly. I also was often uncomfortable with how much sl*t-shaming and weight-shaming was bantered around between the girls. While I admit this isn't unusual to see in reality or in fiction, I felt that the lack of character building on even the main characters caused the use of some of the language to make me dislike the whole cast of characters even more.

On the whole I wouldn't turn anyone away from Marstown, but I would warn interested parties that the characters are written poorly and overall, the book could've stood a few more drafting and editing sessions.