White Crow

White Crow by MArcus Sedgwick, 2011. 240 pages. Published by Roaring Brook Press. Source: Library.

Some secrets are better left buried; some secrets are so frightening they might make angels weep and the devil crow. Thought provoking as well as intensely scary, White Crow unfolds in three voices. There's Rebecca, who has come to a small, seaside village to spend the summer, and there's Ferelith, who offers to show Rebecca the secrets of the town...but at a price. Finally, there's a priest whose descent into darkness illuminates the girls' frightening story. White Crow is as beautifully written as it is horrifically gripping.

First Sentence:

The earth quakes, the graves burst open, the dead arise and stream on in endless procession.

While browsing the shelves at the library, I saw that they had a new(ish) book by Marcus Sedgwick and thought I'd give it a try. Especially since I really enjoyed My Sword Hand is Singing. Sadly, I was highly disappointed in it.

After reading My Sword Hand is Singing, I was all set to give another of Marcus Sedgewick's books a whirl. Unfortunately, White Crow ended up being nowhere near as good as the last book of his I read and not scary in the least bit.

So, the plot did not work for me at all. I felt that it was entirely too vague, especially when it came to why exactly Rebecca and her dad had moved to the small village. I think is there had been a little more detail in the plot and the why of things in the book it would have made White Crow a truly scary and good.
The other, biggish, problem with this book would have to be the delivery, It felt like the revelations of what was and had happened in the village was delivered at the wrong moment and, sometimes, in the wrong way to convay it properly in the context of the story. Now, it may just have been me, but it just didn't work for me while I was reading it.

The characters were one of the reasons that I just could not get into this book. I felt like Rebecca's character could have used a little more something. I'm not sure what, but her character was just lacking in the interesting department and made it hard to feel anything short of annoyance towards her.
As for Ferelith, she was just a little too kooky and outthere. Ferelith was one of those characters that was supposed to be weird, but came across as more of a forced weirdness and not something that flowed naturally.
Sadly, this is one were I am having a hard time coming up with something I liked about it...I always like to try and find at leasy book I read, whether I like said book or not, and the one thing I liked about White Crow would have to be that the ending of the book was unexpected. But in a good way. It was really the only way that the book could have ended, so I was glad that the author did not wimp out from ending the book in that way (I'll just say this, a charater died at the end...for those who are curious).
There were a couple of things that kept White Crow from being one that I could truely enjoy. The writing and plot came across like one that was dashed together in a matter of hours, with too many different narratives that did not really mesh together into a cohesive whole

Have you read White Crow? What did you think of it if you did and do you plan on reading it? While this may not have been the book for me, I want to know y'alls thoughts on it.

Final Verdict: White Crow fell flat for me, and was quite disappointing.

White Crow earns 2.5 out of 5 pineapples.