Rarely have I seen such perceptive characterizations and sharpness of plot focus in any book as in this one. The frightening darkness and glowing promise of humanity pours from this novel's every page like water, sustaining the reader to make the entire trip of almost six hundred pages on the edge of their seat nearly the entire time. There are so many profound pictures of the meaning of our lives and the lives of the people living around us to be found in this book that to launch into an explanation and analysis of them all would take a review nearly as dense as the book itself. That's exactly what happens in this book not once or twice, but over and over again. So many people cannot come together in one space without sparks flying, and when enough sparks get together they will always be sure to ignite any scene. The list of characters is long and important, each one playing some significant role in the narrative's scope. Some of these issues follow Roberta throughout the entire book and others find a speedier resolution, but they all contribute to the furtherance of the plot as its dark net begins to tighten, as Roberta begins to find out how all of these ostensibly unconnected portions of her life really fit together in a giant puzzle to point her toward information about the unsolved murder of her mother seven years ago, and the stunning revelations about the people who were involved in it.Ĭrusader is marked with deeply running lines of noblest virtue and yellowest cowardice, often even coming from the same person. The massive density of the book allows for the resulting ripples of this heated conflict to be treated with uncommon depth, and for a large number of side characters and other issues to naturally blossom from the story as it goes along. Roberta gets caught up in the dispute between a young Arab-American mall vendor named Sam and a teenage worker who goes by the nickname Hawg, from her family's arcade. Roberta's life is heavily wrapped up in the dark, deadly secrets of her past, however, as well as in the deep secrets kept by her family and the people around them. The arcade's fare is exclusively comprised of virtual reality games, known as "experiences", and for five dollars a pop the customers can immerse themselves in these experiences that briefly transport their senses to another time and place. Roberta is a junior in high school, and she assists her father and her uncle's family in the operation of the virtual reality arcade that they own, in the languishing West End Mall. Crusader is very similar in the power and magnitude of its scope, taking its sweet time to close slowly in around the unwinding plot that is Roberta Ritter's life. His debut novel, Tangerine, blew by the expectations that I could ever have for any author's first effort, unfolding with the seeming skill of a story told by an author seasoned by decades of experience at inciting emotion and gripping his readers in the throes of excitement. Then you realize that you're only a quarter of the way through the book.Įdward Bloor is a master writer. For one thing, it's five hundred ninety-one pages long, and with the intense, dynamic writing style of the ingeniously endowed Edward Bloor, that length makes for a roller coaster ride of impossibly unpredictable twists and turns, red herrings and shocking secrets revealed at each step along the way, going and going until one might think that it just couldn't go anymore. Crusader is not your typical young-adult book.
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