The Cartographers

There are too many ways to give spoilers if I review this book in detail, so I will keep it general. It's about Nell Young, who was considered an up and coming scholar in cartography, next in line to take her father's place as the Map Curator at the New York Public Library, until she fell from grace when she found what she thought were rare and precious maps in a box labeled “junk” in the basement. The book begins 7 years after that, Nell and her father having been estranged for all of that time, when she gets a call from one of his colleagues asking her to come to the NYPL, where she finds out her father has died in his office. The novel tells the story of Nell searching for the answers to all the questions she has about their estrangement, her father's legacy, and his death.

The central feature of the story, once you see it, is pretty interesting, but it takes almost half the book to come fully into view. The author is good at creating suspense and keeping you with her as the story develops, but in retrospect I wondered how much of all that development was necessary. Soon after that, I made some guesses about how things would turn out and, sad to say, I was right. I still enjoyed reading it and you might too, if you enjoy stories about academic scholarship.

DNF @ 9%. I'm trying to be more committed to DNF-ing as soon as I know a book isn't for me and this one is just not for me. Even after her father's death and her discovering there is something going on with this map I still don't feel the mystery and tension building. I can't bring myself to care about the storyline and from what I've read of other reviewers I don't think that feeling will improve. The plot synopses sounded fun but I was completely bored the whole first 4 chapters and just decided to give up. I don't even care enough to skip to the last few chapters and find out what happens at the end. 1/5 stars for just being uninteresting.

I enjoyed this book about maps and the ways they bring people together or separate them. I had heard about the phantom settlement Agloe before, but I didn't know the whole story. I was glad that Nell's father requested a Sanborn Map as I had not only heard about them but had used them to find an ancestor's childhood home!

This was a pretty neat book, a nice mystery and adventure with magical realism. While some things didn't quite add up to me and there are some grievances I have with the characters I enjoyed this story overall and found it compelling.  Made me think a lot of John Green though. 

It did kind of gnaw at me though that I couldn't quite believe that Wally was so dangerous when everything first went down. Like, yes, he went off the rails, but surely there had to be a better way than hiding in the town for 30 years while your daughter and husband are on their own growing up not knowing you and believing you're dead. Sure by the end he's obviously a problem, but initially I just don't buy it especially when the one person who might ever be able to get through to him decides to stay stuck in the town. Then the rest of you decide (because for some reason you're convinced Wally will come after you I guess)  instead of sticking together to protect each other you're like yeah let's never see each other again thanks bye. Also Felix kinda sucks. Leaving Nell via a note the first time for something that wasn't really even her fault? Nah that's some bullshit and then he's giving her ultimatums to be with him the second. Absolute trash. 

2.5 Stars

When I start reading a new book I have the rating in mind from start to finish and when I tell you I fought hard for this book. I kept making excuses for it in my mind to keep that rating high. At 40% I had to accept it wasn't going to be a 5 star read, at 70% we hovered at 4-3 stars, at 80% I was sure that my final verdict would be 3 stars and I had a review drafted already that said “It was a good story but not a good novel.” Then somehow at that 90% mark it dropped to a 2 star, because it made me mad. I can't in good conscience even say it was a good story after reading that last act.

The premise is so interesting, the mystery intriguing, the cover GORGEOUS, but that's all the praise I could find after finishing the book.

One thing that stood out as I was reading was the lack of immersion. The author didn't spend time painting the settings or crafting the atmosphere of the scenes leaving me feeling emotionally disconnected to the happenings of the book. I wanted to be in there, experiencing the story with the characters, feeling the wonder and the grief and shock and joy, instead I felt like I was a passive bystander reading some director's notes for this excellent movie they had in mind.

While the majority of the book was told in third person, there are chapters from in first person POV from various characters. There are 2 problems I found with this:
1. The shift from third person to first was so clumsy and entirely took away from the reading experience
2. None of these characters have a distinct voice. They all sound the same.

The magic system in the book's universe was so confusing to understand. This wouldn't actually matter a lot of times, I've read plenty of books where the magic is never explained, but it felt especially bad in this book in particular because the characters are academics. Academics who have just discovered magic. And they did try to explain it to us but it was just a confusing mess all in all.

(Personal pet-peeve: some of the dialogue is too cheesy and cliché. Maybe just a nitpick)

One last thing, in terms of the dark academia genre, this book falls flat. Self importance, secrecy, and drama are key components to dark academia novels, but these things can also be insufferable. Most books in the genre deal with it by making the reader feel included in this elite group and making the audience buy into the hype of whatever discipline the cast of characters focus on like classics, theatre, history, the likes. I expected this book to make me fall in love with cartography and make me understand why these characters are so passionate (to the point of MURDER) about the craft of map making. The Cartographer's did no such thing and I think that's it's biggest failure.

Overall, The Cartographers did not really do much for me. After the opening chapters and the mysterious death at the New York Library, the book just fizzled out, and I became pretty disinterested. I was hoping that the more magical elements might come together and offer up something fun, but it was ultimately confusing and riddled with head scratching events that could have been solved quite easily with a few heart-to-heart conversations.

// Cartographer Nell Young is called to the New York Public Library after her father, Dr. Daniel Young, dies at his desk. She discovers a map hidden away in a secret compartment in his desk, prompting her to investigate the circumstances behind his death. //

The map that Nell finds in the desk is the same map that had ended her promising career at the NYPL. She had found it in a box seven years prior, informed her father about it, and he had her fired. Since then, Nell could not find a job in the field and has been working for a fledgling artwork re-creation shop. Now, this is pretty much where everything goes south for me. Nell begins to piece together information from her parents' past from old college friends. These flashback segments are pretty dry and lack any real progression to the overall pace and plot. I was waiting for some sort of revelation or juicy tidbit to emerge, but nothing really did. The source of tension was a black car that kept following Nell and a few police that show up at inopportune times. That's about it. Some other associates end up dying at the library, but it seems that most of the main characters, and the police, for that matter, could not be bothered. It never really gave a sense of any looming danger, which was kind of disappointing. If any danger did rear its head, there was a quick out, which everyone seemed to be mystified about, me included.

// “Why had he let her work so hard her whole life, and then ruined it all in one moment?” //

I feel like it's hard to really delve too much into the relationships because there is not much to cling on to. The other thing that really felt underwhelming was the map creation ideas. The Dreamers' Atlas felt more like an exploratory art project than something more profound, and I was kind of baffled by the company Felix worked for. The AI was brought in as a counterargument to paper maps and their usefulness, but it just didn't have any teeth.

// “Maps were love letters written to times and places their makers had explored. They did not control the territory- they told its stories.” //

Other than the thin investigative portions, we learn a bit about a magical town, let's say. Now I enjoy magical realism just as much as the next person, but I need a bit more to go on. I just wish their was more imaginative descriptions, some stakes, some fascinating rules, anything to keep it interesting. I had a hard time looking past some of the plot points, but like I said at the beginning, I just do not think this was for me.

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