...but it's a mess we can't stop reading.
Unlocked by Shannon Messenger is by far the weirdest YA book we’ve ever read, and not just because it’s book number 8.5 (have you ever seen an author use decimal points?). It’s not quite even a book—it’s like a 10-course dinner menu, with an intimate view of everything you could possibly want to know about the Lost Cities for the appetizers and a mini-novella for the main course. There’s a section on the world of the Lost Cities, chapters in the format of registry files for all the characters, an array of portraits, a deep-dive into Elvin culture, rebel groups, intelligent species, activities, and Keefe’s memories. Okay, we lied. It’s more like a 60-course dinner menu.
In its entirety, the book is very experimental and certainly unique.
The novella, which takes up less than half of the book, was by far the best part. After struggling through a history-lesson-style section on the Lost Cities, it felt like the first gulp of water on a long, exhausting hike. Messenger tackles novella-style writing extremely well (which is especially impressive considering that most of her books are, like, 600 + pages). It felt polished and entertaining, and was undoubtedly a page-turner. The novella picks off from the ending of Legacy, where Nubiti has become the queen of Loamnore, Oralie offers to help Sophie open her cache, Fitz and Sophie have kind of made up but the tension between them is still undeniable, and Keefe is in a deep coma after being hit by shadowflux (which Elvin thinks is because he will manifest a new ability). It’s hard to speak specifically about what happens in the new novella without giving spoilers, but we’ll just say this: we find out what’s been going on with Keefe and the cache, and, of course, the Fitz-Sophie-Keefe love triangle. And the best part of the novella is that we get Keefe’s perspective!
We know. We’ve been dying for it too.
And although there were flaws (like Keefe not acting his age), we think that Messenger overall successfully pulled it off. Keefe’s voice clearly shone through, and his perspective allowed us to see other characters, such as Sophie, in ways we hadn’t before (and let’s just say that it was pretty cute at times).
From both Keefe and Sophie’s perspectives, Messenger’s writing is, as always, on point—snappy, descriptive, and filled with dramatic pauses and fragmented sentences.
The lines below are a classic example:
“[Keefe] couldn’t control this—not unless he did something drastic.
Something he definitely didn’t want to do.
But he would.
He had to.
He wasn’t giving up.
He was fighting back his own way.”
The drama is so abundant it’s tangible (and yes, all of those line breaks are actually there).
Messenger’s writing always gets us sucked into her books and world, and this novella was no different. And don’t worry, you’ll find yourself left teetering on yet another iconic cliffhanger at the end.
However, the plot itself… well. We have some things to say about the plot. Though it was no doubt engaging, and of course things happened, we finished the book almost feeling like we had read it before. The reason: the same plot lines, hidden under the guise of new conflicts and characters, happen over, and over, and over again. Again, we can’t be much more specific for spoiler reasons, but the plot surrounding Keefe felt like a conglomeration of things that happened earlier in the series.
And book 8.5 (...still weird) unfortunately does not fix what in our opinion is the biggest problem of the series: how the larger plot arc just keeps on getting more and more complicated with zero resolutions or indications of closure to compensate.
The larger plot of Keeper of the Lost Cities is like a sweater coming apart at the seams: as the books go on, everything keeps on unraveling without any way to stitch it all back together.
Book 8.5 just makes things a whole lot worse—and trust us, we didn’t think we’d be saying that. Even though Messenger insists the series will be done by book 9, it seems like she’s gearing up for the series to stretch on for a lot longer. Let’s face it. Messenger thought she’d be done at book 5. Then book 7. Honestly, at this point, we wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years, we’re reading book 14… or if we’ll get book 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9… just so we can finish at her proclaimed nine-book series. Okay, maybe we’re being a bit dramatic, but still—you get the point. We’re climbing and climbing the plot mountain without any end in sight.
Moving away from the novella, the first part of the book—the 59 appetizers on the 60 course menu—felt like a double edged sword. On the one hand, it shows just how strong Messenger’s world building really is. When you read any Keeper book, you feel the strength of her world—the refined Elvin culture, the locations, the fantastical creatures—and the first part of the book served as a master exhibit to her glorious world building. She has enough material to write the length of a full-on BOOK, after all. She could probably show up to someone’s school and give a year-long course on her world (which we would definitely sign up for).
The first part of the book also gives a kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse into her work for readers—we see so much of what she has to carefully plan out before writing.
That being said, the first half is also, in many ways, a rip off—you can’t not buy it because you need to read the novella, but it’s probably not what you signed up for when you bought the next Keeper book. For all we know, it could just be a content-vomit to cover up Messenger needing more time for a full on book, but also having to stick to her demanding 1-year-release schedule.
Additionally, despite displaying the splendor of the Lost Cities, the first half also sheds light on the series’ problems we talked about before (like the plot being hard to follow because it is so complicated). Messenger’s classic “let’s use the first 20 pages to recap everything that happened in the last book” (which is, admittedly, a perfect way to get readers back on track) gets a whole lot worse here. For example, the entire “registry files” are basically a subtle way of reminding the reader what happened in the entire series. Because a lot of the information in there is definitely not something that would normally be in a registry file.
Take Biana’s, for example: “There’s something to be said for Biana’s ability to fearlessly face down giant mutant beasts or angry ogre kings, or any of the other terrifying situations she’s found herself in, and then swipe on some of her favorite lip gloss and put on her frilliest, fanciest gown like nothing happened.”
Furthermore, the characterization in both the registry files and the novella is disappointing. In the early books of the series, we found most of the characters distinguishable and interesting. Although we did think Sophie was a “Mary Sue,” most of the other characters still had unique characteristics and crucial flaws; with Fitz’s anger issues, Biana’s cruelty, Keefe’s recklessness, and Grady and Edaline’s betrayal, the characters felt multidimensional and interesting.
However, the main characters’ personalities have dried out over time, becoming increasingly one-dimensional and homogenous.
At this point in the series, even the most interesting characters, like Tam and Keefe, have been forced into a proverbial character mould; it would seem that all of the characters are converging towards becoming tragically perfect—that is, becoming Sophie.
After Unlocked, we might describe the characters as follows:
Sophie: tortured perfection who is not like other girls
Keefe: tortured perfection who buries his mommy issues and true feelings underneath cheap humor
Fitz: tortured, heartbroken perfection
Biana: tortured, apparently gorgeous (although, of course, Sophie is portrayed as being even prettier) perfection who likes to wear dresses but doesn’t want to be discounted for being girly (the horror!)
Tam: tortured (but edgy) perfection who (gasp) has secret emotions and who is constantly at war with his inner darkness
Linh: bland, tortured perfection whose singular personality trait is having emotions; she loves her brother and harbors not-so-secret feelings for Fitz and that is all
All of the parents: tortured perfections whose only goal in life is to protect their children. They hate that their children are constantly almost killing themselves on dangerous missions (yet still let them go whenever they want to) but love fretting at home on the diamond-encrusted chaise
And we wish the homogeneity of the characterization ended here. But it doesn’t.
In the early days of the series, the villains had realistic motivations and fleshed-out backstories. We saw Brant treated as inferior, lose the love of his life, and eventually go mad because of the ban on Pyrokinesis. His story was tragic and poignant; it felt realistic for him to become a part of the Neverseen. However, as the series went on, and as more members of the Neverseen were introduced, it seemed that every villain’s singular personality trait was to be evil. Why did Gethen join? What could have made Umber so disturbingly psychopathic? Vespera? Lady Gisela? They can’t all be evil for the sake of being evil, but that’s how it seems right now. We wish we could see more of the villains’ personalities and quirks—we find it boring when characters are solely defined by one trait.
That being said, Messenger recognized this and worked to improve her villains; the addition of Glimmer as a character is one big strength of Unlocked. She’s the ultimate “gray-zone” character; she’s certainly bad… but also maybe not? If Messenger doesn’t make her betray the Dream TeamTM and run back to the Neverseen, she has a lot of potential—more than any of the current main characters.
One other issue we had with the characters was the fact that they almost never seem to act appropriately for their ages. They wildly oscillate between acting like nine-year-olds and acting like 40 years olds (with PhDs). We see an often-exasperated Sophie (who is always “too tired to crack a smile”) wax poetic about the true meaning of friendship and gain worry lines—at 14 (human) years old! We then read 16-year-old Keefe’s dialogue—which is eighty percent joking as if he’s two years old and twenty percent sophisticated and uncomfortably deep. And all of the characters have a heart attack at the mention of anything remotely sexual (even The David). At times, they act oddly similar to the adults, except they are clearly cooler. As 16-year-olds ourselves, none of these behaviors feel familiar or realistic, which is disappointing.
Despite all of the issues we had with Messenger’s dissolving characterization, she undoubtedly makes characters that are easy to read and love. Even as we roll our eyes at the tropes and the ever-increasing homogeneity, we still come back for more.
The Keeper of the Lost Cities series is akin to a cheap donut; it’s not of the highest quality, it’s probably not good for us, but it’s undoubtedly addictive.
Ultimately, we love to hate Keeper of the Lost Cities for its over-stretched length and character deterioration. But will we be buying the next book in the series?
Absolutely.