Anna Undreaming by Thomas Welsh
Thomas Welsh's feminist fantasy novel is an energetic, earnest book – it's just not a very good one
After a night out gone wrong, Anna finds herself stumbling through the looking glass into a world of artists able to bend reality to their will. Drawn into the middle of a battle between good and evil she didn’t know was raging, she must learn to harness her powers to prevent the rising of a new dark force.
Her 'letter from Hogwarts' moment is followed by a bombardment of new terms as she is educated in the ways and words of Thomas Welsh’s universe. Dreamers, Doxa, Haze, Vig and Basine – at first it seems like the technique is designed to align us with Anna’s overwhelmed mind but, as the onslaught continues, it soon begins to feel more like the excited rambling of a child so in love with the things they’ve dreamt up that they just can’t wait to tell you all about them, all at once.
Unfortunately, that slightly juvenile feeling permeates the book’s style and structure from start to finish. Exposition is inelegantly dumped and then re-dumped as if the author either forgot he’d already explained or didn’t trust the reader to remember. Attempts at feminism are well-intended but hamfisted and often off-target. Characters are largely archetypes who talk in trite metaphors about flames and darkness.
Anna Undreaming gives a critical reader every reason to pull it apart, but it’s also an energetic page-turner with an earnest quality that is genuinely charming.
It’s a very likeable book, just not a very good one.
Owl Hollow Press, 20 Mar, £14.99 rrp