Review: The Curtis Reincarnation by Zathyn Priest

After reading and reviewing Liquid Glass, I was interested to read some of Zathyn Priest's earlier books. The Curtis Reincarnation sounded a bit different and I have a soft spot for heroes who are famous people. In the end, although I enjoyed the book, there were a few niggles which meant that I couldn't wholeheartedly recommend The Curtis Reincarnation.

The story begin with one of our heroes, Jordan, being dragged along to a pop concert by his sister, Becki. The concert features controversial pop singer Tyler Curtis, who is known for his surly temper and outrageous behaviour on and off the stage. Becki has won a backstage party pass and so Jordan reluctantly accompanies her to the party. After wandering off to find some peace and quiet, Jordan is minding his own business when Tyler Curtis enters the room he is in. Jordan is amazed to discover that the hype surrounding the singer is a lie, and that Tyler, or Alec as he is really known, is actually a sweet tempered young man who is being mentally and physically abused by his controlling manager.

One of the most interesting things about this book was the way it examined the culture of celebrity and how easy it is to manipulate the media. As Tyler, Alec plays a part - one which has been forced on him by his manager. The media love the bad boy image and for two years Alec has been giving them what they and his manager want. However, underneath the clothes and the snarling voice is a very different man and one who has to be carefully kept away from public eye. I found it interesting to see the lengths that Frank goes to, to ensure that 'his product' is only seen as he wishes. When Alec makes a break from his manager we see how completely naive and helpless he is when dealing with the media which I felt worked within the context of the book. After being so heavily managed, Alec is a danger to his reputation because he simply cannot play the media game that Frank played for him.

Another aspect I liked about the book is the unflinching way it showed how difficult life can be for an epileptic. Alec has epilepsy, and the scenes where he has a fit were realistically done. On top of the horrifying physical descriptions, are Alec's own feelings of shame about his illness and how this links into his low self esteem. Other aspects of the illness such as the impact on the friends and relatives of those with epilepsy are also dealt with in a sympathetic way. I came away from the book feeling like I had learned something about the illness and how it affects those who suffer from it.

In terms of characterisation, the book is completely dominated by Tyler/Alec. In some ways this is good because he is a very sympathetic character. I liked him a great deal and empathised with him over his difficult past and the way that he had been completely taken advantage of by Frank. In other ways, this meant that the other characters were overshadowed by Alec. By the end of the book I barely knew anything about Jordan other than the fact that he has a very irritating (for him and me) sister, that he has a generally dour attitude and that he is a web designer. It was strange really that I ended up knowing more about Alec's manager, Frank, than I did about his lover, Jordan, and I wished that Jordan had been fleshed out more than he was.

One thing that I found very distracting in the book was the way that the author would suddenly break off from the action of the story, step outside of the narrative and spend a few pages telling the reader long passages of information about the characters. So, instead of the characters opening up to one another and sharing their past, everything is set out for the reader as a sort of mini story within the story, before stepping back into the action. This 'info-dump' is not only used to tell the reader about the character's past but is also used to relate some of the things that the characters essentially do 'off page'. I found this to be quite a clumsy way of feeding information to the reader and, to be honest, very dull too. I wanted to go back to the action and find out what was going to happen next to the characters, not be fed lots of information all in one go.

One final warning, as I know some of you don't like this in your books, this is an insta-love story. Jordan and Alec barely know each other before they are declaring their love and talking of their happy ever after. This didn't bother me too greatly, mostly because of Alec's past, but I know that many readers will find the way that these two men are committed to each other in such a short space of time (days) annoying.

So whilst there was much to like about this story, such as the character of Alec; his epilepsy; and the way he uses his fame to break away from Frank and take back control of his life, some of the stylistic devices used in the story didn't work so well for me. Add this to the fact that, other than Alec (and perhaps Frank) the rest of the characters are not particularly well rounded, plus it went on maybe 30 pages longer than it should have done, then I can't highly recommend this book. It gets a grade of 'Good' from me and is a book which many of you who are looking for a story about a famous person will enjoy.

Buy this book HERE.