Name: Liz Carpenter's review of The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H. G. Parry
Item: The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep
Rating: 4
Author: Liz Carpenter

H. G. Parry

'Parry knocks it out of the park . . . Just plain wonderful' Kirkus 'A joyous adventure through all the tales you've ever loved. Funny, charming, clever and heartfelt, you're absolutely going to adore The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep' Tasha Suri, author of Empire of Sand For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob - a young lawyer with an utterly normal life - hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world, and for once, it isn't Charley's doing. There's someone else out there who shares his powers and it's up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them - before anyone gets to The End.

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

Liz Carpenter

The ultimate book-lover's fantasy, featuring a young scholar with the power to bring literary characters into the world, for fans of The Magicians, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, and The Invisible Library. For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob -- a young lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancee, and an utterly normal life -- hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his life's duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world... and for once, it isn't Charley's doing. There's someone else who shares his powers. It's up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them, before these characters tear apart the fabric of reality.

I loved the concept of the book. Characters summoned from books is a truly fascinating idea, surely not something completely unique, but one of the few books I've ever read about this. I enjoyed a good range of the characters and how they moved the story along. However, at a certain point the book became an intolerable slog. It devolved into a cat and mouse game, which gave the location of the most far too many times, while never letting the cat catch up. This is a gigantic frustration for the reader as he already understand where the story is going, but gets soaked in the honey of sibling drama and a story that trails for miles while making no significant development to steward the reader's interest. The book needs to be cut down in size and the unnecessarily sappy drama halved at the least. I wanted to love it, but ended up dissatisfied. Any other book than this one was easier to read. 

BC Hark

Christine

Celeste Richardson

I received a copy of this book from the publisher (Orbit US/Redhook) in exchange for an honest review.
It’s.
Not.
Fair.
I know that life isn’t.
But stories are. Or if they’re not fair, they’re not fair with purpose.
I wish I could tell better where stories end and life begins.
Sometimes you just need to escape into a good book. But if you’re Charles Sutherland, sometimes you inadvertently facilitate the escape of fictional characters into the real world. Imagine being able to read out your favorite character from a story and have an actual conversation with them. That sounds like a dream come true for most bookworms, but it’s been a nightmare that Rob, Charley’s big brother and our first person perspective character, has spent his life trying to avoid. He’s had to clean up Charley’s fictional messes a multitude of times throughout his life, but the current fictional mess they find themselves in is the zaniest and more far reaching, and frankly the most dangerous, that the Sutherland family has ever faced. Their world is going to be changed forever if they can’t figure out a way to thwart what’s coming. 
“That’s the danger of stories… They bring things into the world, and they can’t be put away again.”
When I first started reading this book, I was strongly reminded of some of my favorite pieces of children’s fiction, most specifically Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. That book also involves the reading out of fictional characters from their books. However, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep takes this concept a few steps further. Whereas the characters in Inkheart came from an imaginary book of the same name, Parry used real books and real characters from them to populate her fictional cast. We have Dorian Gray and Heathcliff, the White Witch from Narnia and Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Sherlock Holmes and five different incarnations of Mr. Darcy and a plethora of Dickensian characters who make themselves known in this novel. It was a delightful inclusion that made me actually want to read more Dickens, especially David Copperfield and Great Expectations. I’ve only ever read Oliver Twist, Bleak House, and A Christmas Carol, but I now find myself looking forward to remedying that lack.
“If you’re wanting some sort of theory about what we’re made of, old thing, that’s the best I can do. We’re half words, and half thought.”
“The point where language and interpretation meet…”
I also deeply appreciated how much textual interpretation influenced the appearance and character of any fictional entity read from the page into reality. While each character took on a life of the their own once they were read into being, their identity was shaped by how their reader viewed them. I love that Parry used this to show how radically two people can view the same character, and how that dichotomy can completely change how different people understand the same story. And yet, each character who appeared in this book felt very true to their character in their original work, and often quoted either themselves or their author, which was a delightful inclusion. So while interpretation definitely matters, it can’t change the core of the character as written by the author. Also, the fact that certain characters were summoned by readers who only ever had this one moment of connection to and clarity regarding a fictional character was a fun addition, because that means that everyone is capable of magically connecting to a novel. It’s a lovely thought that I firmly believe is representative of the truth about reading; it really is for everyone, and there’s no magic quite like it. 
“…you know when you read a book, sometimes, and you suddenly realize that you’ve been missing something your whole life, and you weren’t even aware, and all at once you’ve found it and are just a little bit more whole?”
This is one of the first books I’ve ever read that was set in New Zealand and written by an author native to the area, which added a fun element that I didn’t know I’d be getting from this book. The settings, both of the Wellington of reality and the fictional Street that hides within it, were very atmospheric. The Dickensian Street was incredibly easy to visualize, and I can see why so many fictional refugees made their way to said Street and settled there. I also loved how these characters built their own motley family, and how tightly knit they were. 
“This street is complicated, isn’t it?”
“Thousands of years of the written word, filtered through countless readerships… How can it not be?”
Both Parry’s original characters and those she pulled from other works of fiction were delightful and uniquely their own. However, I have to confess that it took me a while to connect to Rob, Charley’s brother and our only first person perspective character. He seemed so irrationally close-minded and judgmental when it came to Charley and what he could do that I couldn’t bring myself to like him. However, he truly grew as the story progressed and as Parry showed us more and more the reasoning behind his mentality. While he still wasn’t my favorite by the end of the book, I did appreciate and respect him. But Charley takes the cake. He is one of the most precious characters I’ve come across in adult fiction, and I just wanted to both protect and delight in him.
“Truth, at least complete truth, isn’t held in words. But there can be no truth at all without them. It lies behind them and lurks around them and shines through them, in glimpses of metaphor, and connotation, and story.”
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep is such a fun ode to books. Books about books always spark joy in me, and this particular book fanned that spark into a cheery and inviting fire. Stories matter, and Parry’s debut celebrates that fact. If you’re a lover of the written word and believe that there’s nothing better than getting lost in a good book, this book is so definitely for you.

You can find this review and more at Novel Notions.

Helen Borham

This book was fab and I really enjoyed if from the very start. I love a book about books and this was a perfect example. I loved how well known literary characters were seamlessly woven into this story. The author was very clever with this and showed real understanding in the themes behind many famous writers, particularly Charles Dickens. This book was also a great example of fantasy appearing to be completely believable in a real world setting which is another of my favourite things to read about

Ian Brakspear

This is such a magical fantasy book that you can’t help but fall in love with. Charley Sutherland has a very special ability. He can bring Fictional characters to life and bring them out of the pages of books and bring them into real life. Charley uses his own interpretations of the Characters as he reads them and then he can come face to face with them.

Within the pages of this book, we meet and get to meet and get to know characters in The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep from Arthur Conan Doyle's writing as well as works of Dickens, Lewis Carroll and Roald Dah, Now I will admit that I have not read any classics, but I didn’t feel left out in face I just had the feeling of being invited into their world through this book. The writing within this book spoke to the passions of all the books and characters mentioned & it has made me consider picking some up

The Action within the book is so epic and powerful written that makes it such a realistic fantasy that you can see played out in your head as a movie. I loved the plot of using literary characters teaming up with real life people to fight against an ongoing threat that threatens them all.  I don't want to go into too much detail about the literary characters because I think it's fun to discover them yourself! But just know that you will get drawn in and won’t be able to put the book down. 

The main characters (Robert & Charley Sutherland) have a Roller Coaster ride off an adventure, and it was amazing to see how different the bothers where but how at the heart of it you can see how much they love and admire each other.

Honestly, this book was just perfect. I can't fault it & I highly recommend it to all reader especially older reads that love Pages & Co. This was such a captivating story, and you won’t want to put down until the very end!  

Judy McClure

Wonderful, magical story about the relationship between brothers, the love of books and the stories that shape us.

Emily S

-3.5 stars-

Brief synopsis: A man in New Zealand with the ability to “summon” characters from books into the real world is threatened when a new summoner comes onto the scene in an attempt at what is basically world domination. 

Things I liked 👍🏻: Good mix of character driven and plot driven. Loved diving into the relationship between the two brothers. Also benefitted from the audiobook narrator who did a wonderful job! 

Things that were meh 🤷🏻‍♀️: some spoilers of famous classics, like pretty much all Dickens books...but this was also kinda my fault for, you know, not reading them. 

Things I didn’t like 👎🏻: Seemed a little long and drawn out in parts. Struggled with how much suspension of disbelief to give the book, and whether it was intended to be humorous or serious...

Overall: very enjoyable and a unique story that I was glad to have read!

7/10

Heather Harrington

**I received a copy of this via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

All his life, Charley Sutherland has been able to read characters to life. Whenever he gets deeply into a story or character, they just seem to manifest right off the page. It's a special gift that he's been trying his whole life to keep a secret. The only ones who know about this ability are his family; his older brother Rob usually being the one roped into helping Charley put these rogue characters back where they belong. Charley has always believed he's the only one in the world with this power, but he soon finds out there's another, and they have it out for him.

After discovering an entire hidden street full of fictional characters that have been read to life, Charley and Rob find themselves in way over their heads. From being attacked by the Hound of Baskervilles, to shape-shifting Dickensian villains, the brothers must join forces with a character from their past before the entire world as they know it gets rewritten.

I loved the entire premise of this story, however, I didn't love the execution. There's a ton of action in this book, yet it read like wading through molasses. I loved the idea of all these famous literary characters banding together to stop a terrible evil, and while that is basically what happens, it feels more like a master class in Charles Dickens. While I get that that particular influence really drives the main plot, I just felt it made it slightly too difficult for me to fully connect. I did still enjoy this, just not as much as I had hoped.

A Novel

Beth Bartholomew

Thank you to Orbit Books UK for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Let me start by saying what a treat of a book! Charley and his brother Rob are quite different, but the two leads in this book. Charley, the younger of the two, has a rather extraordinary ability though, he can bring the characters of books to life. I know we all like to think we breathe life into the books we read, but quite literally, Charley pulls them out of the page. He feels the passion of the words he reads and he pulls forward his own interpretations of the characters to come face to face with him.

This struck me initially as an adult version of Pages & Co, Tilly and the Bookwanderers, which also has the magical concept of book characters coming to life. We meet characters in The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep from Arthur Conan Doyle's writing as well as works of Dickens, Lewis Carroll and Roald Dahl. Whilst this book focused mainly around Victorian literature and heavily on the works of Dickens, I didn't feel left behind for not having read anything other than Great Expectations by Dickens. Instead, I felt invited into this world with Charley and Rob, I wanted to learn more about the characters. The writing spoke with such passion of the books mentioned, it made me want to read them all and I have presently bought a few stories from Arthur Conan Doyle.

"We should all strive to be the absolute version of something."

This quote from the book sums up perfectly how I feel about this story. Words have great power, they can create cities, wars, love, they also create an escape. This book swirled me up in a flurry of magic, wonder and asking the question of which book characters I would most want to bring to life.

The drama and action in this book were written so powerfully, so epic, it was utterly fantastic. Seeing so many literary characters teaming up and fighting against the threat in this plot was so inspiring. I was reading along with classical music blaring in my headphones and that only added to my reading experience of the climax of this book. Also an honourable mention to the White Witch from the Narnia books who was a boss in this book. I don't want to go into too much detail about the literary characters because I think it's fun to discover them yourself, but she was a favourite of mine. White leather jacket, riding a motorbike, she was a brilliantly modernised version of C.S.  Lewis' devil incarnate.


 

Rob and Charley's brotherly relationship was certainly tested a lot through this book. I enjoyed their dynamic and liked that this relationship was the focus of the book. Parry did an excellent job of displaying the reality of sibling disputes, protection and communications. Rob has an excellent, dry humour to him that is contrasted with Charley's ability to take everything said quite literally. The two bounce off each other perfectly and were a delight to read about. Below is an excellent quote of some of the excellent lines in this book.

"Is that how he ended up in the hospital?" "Not directly. I think he’s just been doing far too much reading."

Honestly, this book was just perfect. I can't fault it. I've seen some reviews say the plot was a bit all over the place, but it's a book about literary characters coming to life. Have you read Alice in Wonderland? Narnia? There sure is some nonsense in those books, so it makes sense for this book to have a plot that follows it. Overall though I thought this was very well written, structured and it was just completely captivating.

Allie Herrington

The ultimate book-lovers fantasy, this sparkling debut is a "delight of magic and literature, love and adventure" (Kat Howard) featuring a young scholar with the power to bring literary characters into the world. For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: He can bring characters from books into the real world. But when literary characters start causing trouble throughout the city and threatening to destroy the world, he learns he's not the only one with his ability. Now it's up to Charley and his reluctant older brother, Rob, to stop them―hopefully before they reach The End. Praise for The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep: "A star-studded literary tour and a tangled mystery and a reflection on reading itself; it's a pure delight." ―Alix E. Harrow, Hugo Award-winning author "This beautifully-written novel is an exploration of the power fiction wields -- the power to inform and to change, even to endanger, our everyday world." ―Louisa Morgan, author of A Secret History of Witches "Equal parts sibling rivalry, crackling mystery, and Dickensian battle royale, it'll be one of your most fun reads this year." ―Mike Chen, author of Here and Now and Then For more from H. G. Parry, check out: The Shadow Histories A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians A Radical Act of Free Magic

Liz Carpenter &
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H. G. Parry

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