PopSyndicate.com

Like teen lit? Have low standards? Another Faust is for you!

Five teens from around the world have come together in New York’s Upper East Side to be beautiful, smart, athletic, poetic and multi-lingual through the help of their Governess, Madame Vileroy. Victoria has an insatiable need to win; power is all she strives for, and her weapon of choice is academics. Christian will do anything to be rich and ensure that he never has to steal his dinner ever again. Belle and Bice are twins; Belle wants to be beautiful, and Bice finds solace in books and languages. Valentin desires the kind of grace and charm his parents possess, and thinks that his poetry is the way to obtain it. Four of the five - Bice being the exception - would do anything to fill the hole that makes them feel ordinary, and Madame Vileroy, with her blonde good looks and worldliness, has just the solution. She offers them a Faustian deal, and the four accept, leaving their homes and going under her malicious tutelage.

And here begins the book. Madame appears, with her protégés, in New York and enrolls them in the prestigious Marlowe School, where they will deceive, claw, and trick their way to the top. Victoria can ‘cheat’ - that is, read minds, and it alienates her. Christian can steal energy from his opponents, but it prevents him from getting close to anyone, and he feels terrible shame. Belle is wildly beautiful, but her good looks come with a stench that drives people away. Valentin has the power to rewind and replay life, though mastering this skill is not easy and it makes him cold and insane - not to mention stutter. Poor Bice is alone in her sanity, though she has a gift, as well - she can freeze time while she reads, giving her endless days to learn as much as she chooses, and she chooses languages.

As the books begins, our four little monsters and one tag-along are set loose in the Marlowe School to conquer all aspects of social life, and through Vileroy’s malicious tutelage, they do well. But everything with Vileroy comes with a price, and they quickly learn that they, the players, are being played. The harder the five fight to win - or to escape Vileroy’s trap - the worse it gets for them, until they can figure out the exact nature of their Governess and defeat her once and for all.

Another Faust claims to be a sharp, witty, delicious read, but really it’s a book that goes nowhere on a road paved with bad, dull writing. The characters are utterly unlovable, and by the time you’re through the first fifty pages or so, it becomes obvious that there really never will be any kind of emotional bonding with them. I was convinced that I was going to be on a journey of growth and whatever, but honestly, all I could do was pick at the five main characters and hate them. Even in their redemption, they are not redeemable. Part of the problem is that the characters are so ridiculously flat that it’s painful; the brother and sister writing team do a very good job of telling us that one person is funny or smart, but there’s nothing in the writing to really sell the concept. The whole things just feels like a cheap sham, a con perpetuated at the expense of the reader.

The end of the book is just dreadful as well. The characters - even the one we are clearly supposed to root for - do not meet a good or just end; they are all made to suffer and continue suffering for the rest of their lives, which in one case, will not be long. My entire time spent reading this novel felt like a waste, and I was deeply agitated by the end. This book is so bad that I have approached strangers in Barnes and Noble who are holding Another Faust to warn them away.

0