Review: Crusade by Linda Press Wulf

Robert: Left on the steps of a church as a baby, Robert was often hungry but never stole food like the other orphans in town. Introverted and extraordinarily intelligent, he knew all the Latin prayers and hymns by heart by the time he was five years old. Georgette: Her own mother died in childbirth, leaving Georgette with a father who, seventeen at the time, had neither experience nor aptitude as a nurturing parent, and a brother known in town as Le Fuer - The Spitfire - for his terrible temper. Perhaps to replace something missing from their own lives, both Robert and Georgette are drawn to the news of a crusader, twelve or thirteen, no older than themselves, travelling down through France with thousands of followers - all, unbelievably, children too. Of those thousands, this is the incredible story of two. A story of hardship, loss and of love. (Grabbed this from amazon.co.uk. What a surprise.)

After immensely enjoying the author's other book, I figured that I should read this book. I knew I had it, some terribly kind publishers had sent it to me, but one first inspection, I seemed to have misplaced it. It was only after several thorough investigations that I unearthed it, near the top of my tumbling review pile, covered in dust. Because I am talking about myself, being the least co-ordinated person born this century, I accidental sent them all flying onto my foot with some totally unnecessary theatrics. I'm not sure how it got there, as I got it almost three days earlier. But was the book worth the hype I built up upon my search, and the pain collision that my foot experienced? Well, partially.

If there is one thing I require people to know about me, it is the fact that I absolutely adore historical fiction, in any form what so ever. Whether they be trashy romances or eye-opening accounts, it's assured that I will enjoy it in some way. If one can do simple mathematics, then one will have figured out that while I did enjoy this book, I was not completely blind to it's somewhat going flaws. No, I was simply a little short sighted! And since I haven't set foot into an opticians in the last free years, I am going to remain a little Short sighted, throughout this review. Hopefully, I will still be able to see the keys. I will now proceed onto some positive things about this book. But first, you will have to follow the path, and you must ignore the temptations that the floors keep spreading on themselves. But first I must crawl through the ceiling and drop down onto a clean spot of the floor, where the following positive paragraph will make it's home and grow it's garden.

So, one of the positive seeds I found was the setting. I do not recall ever having read a book revolving around the Children's Crusade, and the only other time I'd ever heard of the event was the time that someone offhandedly mentioned that the Crusade resulted in the deaths of most of the participants. Anyhow, with that in mind, I started to pour through this book, just like the paragraph is trying to pour seeds into it's garden, and I wondered, when the characters set forth on their journey with their possessions on their shoulders and their small jar of collective misgiving stored in places you'd probably rather not know of. I was curious to know how the author would handle the situation where I had been informed that they all died. When I cam around to reading it, I was surprised as to how well the author sent most of the characters to their deaths. Or at least, that's one of the possibilities that Wikipedia listed. Predictably, the protagonists weren't bundled onto a ship to be sold as slaves. Although I can see why the author didn't pack them away with the other idiots, or crusaders, or slaves, and I understand that she may have done that in order to provide a happier ending. But then again, it could just be slightly lazy writing, but I can't blame the author, however much I'd like to see a heart-wrenching ending as the boat crashes into the rocky coast of an island of Sardinia, and everyone drowns and it'd be totally romantic and no, I did not watch Titanic last night, no, no, not at all. I watched How to Train your Dragon. Dragons. That's what this book is missing.

Somewhat akin to Press Wulf's other book, the plot was a bit like a mountain hiker. It strolled along at it's own pace, as hikers generally do, even if they are being targeted by rain, snow, flying rocks, dragons, pieces of what was previously were there hiking friends and other such pleasant things. Never the less, that hiker is determined to reach the top. And even when they find some kind of troubling obstacle, that diligent hiker will find some way over it, even if it involves eating their own foot. And then, they will get to the top. Only for that hiker to have rocks thrown at them. Poor hiker. Now that I think of it, that's the only way I can describe the plot of Crusade, the characters of Crusade, and Crusade itself. Persevering. Not that you need to persevere, because the pace of the plot keeps up a steady run throughout. It's like the jog you wish you fantasies about, when you've stopped five metres away from the place where you started that jog.

That said, while the plot does seem all nice and good, but what controls everything in Crusade is the characters. More specifically, how they develop. Like how Georgette slowly alternates from the naive, sweet, average historical every girl to a somewhat stronger, slightly more interesting and mature variation of the previous traits. However, she had a certain lack of interesting traits. And flaws, now that I think of it. I like to think that every time the Children stopped their crusade to drain people's resources, Georgette was not eating food, but she was eating maturity. And whenever something catastrophic occurred, such as death of a love one, or attempted sexual harassment, that maturity came out of her ears to form giant robots. Um. I believe I was supposed to be talking about that other character. Robot. I mean Robert. Robotbert was slightly more interesting than Georgette, and I enjoyed his back story a whole lot more as a whole. I liked how he started of as a mole, of sorts, for an oily priest, a social outcast. His development is that he opens up and become loyal to people other than that slippery priest. Now, did I like this as much? This may sound a little strange, but I did not like that. In fact, his development made me feel very sad, and this is partially due to something that it resulted in. I'll explain that later, but right now I'd like to talk about Stephen.

The author must've been feeling rather clever, or perhaps fancied herself something of a tricksters, or perhaps the people at the publishing house like to see readers struggle over how the character relationships wandered away from expectations and took a train to somewhere entirely different. And no, for those of your with minds similar to mine, that doesn't involved Stephen and Robotbert hooking up. Here, have a tissue. I needed one too. Anyhow, Stephen was the supposed prophet, and subsequently something of a pretentious ... sheep. And despite his infuriating treatment towards woman and his general idiocy in general, I found his character to be the most entertaining. I liked his interactions with Robert, and the strange, love/hate relationship I like to imagine they have. I didn't like his interactions with Georgette, and this is where the above rant resumes. The blurb, and very early parts of the book imply that Georgette is going to end up with Stephen. Except from, she doesn't. And no, Robert doesn't either. Three guesses to who they do end up with. No, not a tree. Georgette and Robert end up together. And I suppose, that is a happy ending - they genuinely love each other, or so the book tells me.

That said, I must admit to not really enjoying the romantic scenes very much. I felt that they were a slightly rushed and the whole relationship was left slightly undeveloped. I hated how Georgette became even meeker, and how Robotbert became more open and to an extent, rather selfish. They plummeted along faster than the winning horse at the Grand National, and as a result of that, there was a certain lack of development. There were plenty of opportunities for them to um, 'deepen their relationship', but their early conversations, pre-relationships conversations, they were just conversations. They felt so empty. If you were to swap a supposedly meaningful chat with a chat regarding the psychopathic nature of fried eggs, then everything would be exactly the same.

But anyway. Overall, Crusade is an interesting book with a fast pace and realistic characters, a lacklustre romance taking place in a fascinating and unusual setting. I enjoyed it, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. I'd recommend it, if you enjoy this kind of things, because the people throwing rotten vegetables at my window tell me that it's something of an acquired taste. Or perhaps they're just throwing them because they know about the quality of this review. Perceptive, those murderous rioters.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for sending me a copy to review.

☆☆☆.5