Whoua, I had a pleasant surprised with this novel! I did not expect that, I was thinking that it was going to annoy me, but finally I was in a hurry for only one thing: to know the continuation. We follows the adventures of a teenager like another who works in a pastry and which excels in the field. Then one evening, she dreamed and meets her late grandmother who warns her and guide her towards a limps containing pyxies. Then in one word, I got lost sometimes because I did not know what a pyxis was. One time it says that those are the potions, another time it is a person. Er, I acknowledge that at some time I did not know too much what to think about it, but with the wire of the story, the explanations appear, the challenge seems to be serious and like we say: there's no smoke without fire. All is traced in advance and Corinne will discover it at her depend. What is well with our heroin, it's: 1) she is not clumsy, 2) she does not seem that disturbed by what arrives to her (well, not a lot), 3) she is dynamic in all that she does (even the strange ones). In short, she is this kind of character whom I appreciate a lot! Then the characters who are say to be secondary, here I do not find them at all secondary on the contrary! Those which are always put in the backside (I understand by it the friends) are present and active! It is a great thing! Ang (for the close friends) and Mason, in spite of their respective social life, are there for Corinne and especially, they give importance to everything. The others (the parents, brothers and rivals (because there are some)) don't remains in the dark, even if the one which interests us is not too present, but that holds within sight of the second volume's blurb, we will have our amount of her. This book is a beginning one, we get our marks. We discovers gradually who is which and for what is used certain things, one step by one, but that is useful. Frankly, I will read the second book too (what? I already said it?). The Neal's style is pleasant to read, I would not say perfect, but is well to see it. The love seems to appear but for the moment it's not there yet. A little patience… For those which likes the stories of magic with a touch of romance, this book is for you! Most of the storylines don’t go anywhere, like the experiments with the cookies that opens the book, or the whole Harriet Jensen thing. So much lazy writing. Like when they are going to pick Aunt Dorothy up; in the chapter where they talk about it, it’s repeated like three times that her mom, Bradley and Corinne will go to pick her up. Suddenly, in the next chapter, she’s alone with Bradley in the car and when she arrives at the home, her mom is already there. Why? Because Neal needed Bradley and Corinne alone in the car. Wasn’t there a more elegant way to do that? Instead of focussing on what’s interesting – the Pyxis – a lot of the first half of the book is devoted to Corinne lamenting over Mason’s supposed kiss with Sophie. I really can not believe that she would mistake someone else for somebody she has known since forever, just because he was wearing Mason’s coat. There were these lost moments that just seemed tuck on to fill the page, like Corinne getting her driver’s license (with written test and driven test on the same day, and she immediately got her license in hand! I call shenanigans), or even the knowledge that Bradley had gone through cancer. What does it matter? Mostly this was all so slow and boring. This book goes on and on and on about the inane details, but even after finishing all these pages I have no idea why the Pyxis is necessary or what they can even do or what on earth it has to do with these bottles. The whole mythology stays really vague.I think my biggest grip with the story, however, was the blatant disregard for her own mythology. The TLC convergence is supposed to exist of four people: the Pyxis, Corinne, the Shield, Mason and two Guardians, Angelina and an as of yet unknown second Guardian (wanna bet that is going to be Sophie?). There’s nothing wrong with this idea; in fact, it could really go somewhere. But instead of doing something with this group of people that Neal is claiming are so important, in literally every scene having to do with the Pyxis, Angelina is off ‘at church’ or ‘with her mother’. There is seriously no reason to write a mythology about four people if all you really want to write is a love story. At the end of this book, Ang still has no idea about her role in all of this, while Dorothy is griping about how they must be quick and how danger is coming? Insanity. And what is up with Corinne being the centre of all this, but Mason being her big protector? Can’t girls look out for themselves?I really don’t like Corinne. She seems to think the world resolves around her. It’s in all the little things. It’s in her being so sure that Sophie is after her brother because she’s out to get Corinne. When Angelina wants to talk about the boy she likes and she’s finally going out with, Corinne is bored because she ‘keeps going on’ – while in the same sentence saying how all she wants to talk about is the Pyxis. I also hate how she just shut out Mason, not even telling him why; just freezing him out because of some blurry picture of him kissing Sophie. Her whole friendship with Angelina is a joke. Corinne doesn’t tell her anything about what she finds out about the Pyxis, and even when she’s on the phone with her, just after finding out Mason didn’t kiss Sophie, she doesn’t tell Angelina. At first I kinda liked Mason, but when, in the end, it became obvious how he refuses to talk to Corinne about anything he knows about the Pyxis, I just wanted to scream at him. There is really nothing in this book that would make me recommend it to anyone.
What do You think about Pyxis: The Discovery (2011)?
Young adult supernatural romance. It was a good and very easy read.
—angelicaxx94
