Review: Icons by Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Little, Brown Book for Young Readers
Published: May 7, 2013
Pages: 428
Source: For Review from Hachette Book Group Canada
Rating: 2 Stars

Your heart beats only with their permission.
Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.
Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.
She's different. She survived. Why?
When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.
Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths.

In short: Unfortunately, Icons by Margaret Stohl failed to impress me with its standard and slow paced plot, its botched scientific explanation, and its flat characters.

I struggled with Icons, which was frustrating because I could see the potential in the concept. Aliens (or "Lords") invade Earth and teens with special powers (the "Icon children") help protect humanity. It was a premise that I should have found interesting and gripping, but instead I found that I just couldn't get into the story. I can't decide if it was just me and the mood I was in when I read Icons or if my issues with it are legitimate concerns. I kind of think it's a bit of both.

I made the false assumption that we were going to see aliens in this alien invasion novel. But we never see them and we are given such limited information about the Lords that the alien invasion aspect of Icons might as well not have been included at all. As such, without the inclusion of any sci fi interest, Icons was a pretty standard dystopian. Not a bad one certainly, but I've read so many of them at this point that Icons fails to leave an impression in the face of much better dystopian fiction, unfortunately.

Like I said, the Icons' concept has a lot of potential on the surface. There are four Icon children and each of them is the embodiment of one emotion - Sorrow, Rage, Love, and Fear - and they are thought to be the key to destroying the Icons that control humanity, as having these heightened emotions somehow gives them special powers. Now, I like a unique concept as much as anyone, but my problem with this one is that I needed a valid explanation for how it works and I never got one. Margaret Stohl only attempts a vague and nonsensical scientific explanation that did the concept no favours. I would have preferred she had called it what it was - just plain magic - instead of attempting a half-hearted and botched scientific explanation.

With the plot of Icons falling to pieces, one would hope that the characterization would make up for it, but unfortunately, I had just as big a problem with that as I did with the plot and concept. I'm not sure if it was because the Icon children were each the embodiment of one emotion only, but this led to some very flat and static characters. Dol, Icons' protagonist, is likeable enough, but her character was pretty unmemorable and bland, which thus made it hard to relate to her. There is also a love triangle here and it is both unnecessary and lacking in chemistry on both sides.

Overall, Icons failed to impress me with its standard and slow paced plot that couldn't keep my interest, its botched scientific explanation for the concept behind the novel, the flat and static characters, and its unnecessary love triangle. I am quite sad about this because I do quite like Margaret Stohl as a person and author and I love her humour. I still maintain the she has great ideas and is a talented writer as I did enjoy the idea and writing for Icons. But I just couldn't get into it. I do think that some of my issues with Icons were quite personal though, so I feel like lots of people will - and have - like it considerably more than I did.

Other Reviews:
Cozy Up With A Good Read
Maji Bookshelf
Realm of Fiction

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