Review: The Many Lives of Lilith Lane by E.V. Anderson

Title: The Many Lives of Lilith Lane
Author: E.V. Anderson
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing/ Plympton
Publish Date: September 6, 2012
Source: I received a copy from the publisher; however, this did not affect my review.

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You don't mind heavy topics.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Seventeen-year-old Lilith Lane has a hunk of a boyfriend, a wicked tongue, and a talent for solving the mysteries that pop up in her small home town of Mirabalis. But when her little sister goes missing in the middle of the night, both Lilith’s detective skills and her recall of sophomore year physics are put to the ultimate test.

To save her sister, Lilith must race against the clock with the help of Dr. Hammer, a mad scientist who pushes Lilith off the edge – literally – of his reality-bending skyscraper. Lilith’s world is turned upside down by her sister’s disappearance, and a skyscraper that is also a portal to a parallel universe suddenly doesn’t seem that surreal. With Dr. Hammer’s help, Lilith must put her girl detective skills to the test and try to save her sister.

A dashing snail expert, a scheming beauty queen, and the heir to a great advertising fortune are just a few of the unforgettable characters who round out the cast in this rollicking tale of love, loyalty, and multiple Earths."

My Two Cents:

The Many Lives of Lilith Lane is a set of serialized fiction that recently came out from Amazon and Plympton, billed as a literary studio for serial fiction. Serialized fiction is not a new idea. I believe that several of Charles Dickens' novels were serialized. That being said, serialized fiction is not a common idea for the present day. I love this idea. How cool would it be to get a piece of new fiction every week? I am anxious to see how this idea pans out.

I was intrigued by this book initially because of the premise. Mad doctors? Parallel universes? Lost sisters? Some sci-fi? Young Adult fiction? It all sounded really good to me.

Unfortunately this book fell flat for me. I had several issues with the book. First off, it was billed as Young Adult fiction and yes, the main character, Lilith Lane, is 17, which makes her a teen. This book is definitely a good example of why simply having a teen in a book does not a Young Adult fiction book make.

The subject matter in this book is way heavy and way too much to be called Young Adult fiction. There are a lot of very mature themes in this book. There are affairs, sex, sexual abuse, romantic relationships between teenagers and adults, some violence, etc. that are really way beyond what should be in Young Adult fiction. I don't disagree that Young Adult fiction can tackle really tough topics but it really depends on the treatment of the subject matter. In this book, the treatment sort of fell flat for making any of it a teachable moment or anything that really needed to be in a Young Adult fiction book. All that being said, I do not believe this book is for younger Young Adult fiction fans.

The writing was a mixed bag for me. The author definitely has a hand for writing intriguing conversations. They sound real and like actual conversations that one would have. This is what the second star is from. It made me willing to perhaps try other things that the author has written.

I didn't care for how the character of Lilith was written at all. She is supposed to be 17 but at times seems much younger (she has Harriet the Spy-like ambitions)and much more immature. I could not tell whether or not that was intentional. If it was intentional, I was not sure what the motivation behind that was. I would have liked to have seen a stronger main character.

Bottom line: Flat.