Bookworm Speaks!- The Navigator by Eoin McNamee

Bookworm Speaks!

The Navigator by Eoin McNamee

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The Story: One day the world around Owen shifts oddly: Time flows backwards, and the world and family he knew disappear. Time can only be set right when the Resisters vanquish their ancient enemies, the Harsh. Unless they are stopped, everything Owen knows will vanish as if it has never been...And Owen discovers he has a terrifying role to play in this battle: he is the Navigator.

The Good: At first glance, this book can seem like an ordinary youth adventure story. It has all of the ingredients. Outsider kid who doesn’t fit in, turns out he has an extraordinary destiny waiting for him and gets swept up in a new dangerous world. Not an incorrect formula, but one has to work hard to make their particular version of this story unique. In this case, the author did work hard to make his vision unique. 

Bookworm is not entirely sure but he has read several books by Irish authors, like Eoin McNamee, and he has noticed a common theme. Irish authors tend to focus on more ethereal concepts in their writing. It not is that hard to come to that conclusion. Ireland is an ancient land, steeped in history and legend, and the people who live there are breed of their own. The stories they tell are more about emotions and abstractions. This is evident in the Navigator. There is not a lot of exposition in the text, it is more feeling and imagery. This sets it apart from other books in this genre as youth fiction tends to be very straightforward. This is a fact and not a positive or negative. This creates a novel that is more about feel rather than thought which makes it contrast in a pleasing way with many adrenaline junkie festivals that make up a large percentage of youth fiction.

The illustrations contained in the book are very nice and allow the reader a glimpse into the world that the author is attempting to show us. Emphasis is given to the various vehicles Owen encounters which are very creative. 

The Flaws: Creativity is a virtue but it can be a double edged sword if one is not careful. In the case of this book, the author was not careful. The story makes no sense. You get an inkling of a coherent story near the beginning but it all fall’s apart once the main plot gets going. It just moves from one scene to the next. 

Vague is the best word that popped into the mind of Bookworm while perusing this tome. As stated above, this book is about feeling, but it feels too much to be of any real consistency.  

Owen gets little to no characterization. He is caught up in the rapids of his situation and does little to affect his environment. Neither to the rest of the characters. There is next to no inklings of the character’s motivations except for some ill-defined reason of time flowing backward. 

Feeling is good but it his difficult to convey in the written word, and you need a little exposition in order to pull it off. Maybe Bookworm did not read it as well as he should have but most of this book just passed in front of his eyes and made very little impressions. 

Time travel is a common speculative fiction motif but it needs to be done carefully. It not, it becomes confusing and turns away the reader, which is exactly what occurs here. It is very difficult to follow what exactly is happening in the book and what exactly is happening to the time stream. 

Final Verdict: A lot of potential could have explored hear, but ultimately its lofty ideals were wasted on poor execution. 

Two out of Five Stars 

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