Just couldn't finish this..... Tried to get into it several times but it just didn't work.

First Line: Thomas, Thomas!

Summary: In a Victorian London where sins can be seen by smoke that leaks from the body the boys, Charlie and Thomas, have to be very careful how they behave. No one knows where the smoke came from but it shows the divide between the wealthy and poor. They stumble upon a woman who is hiding a secret, she is experimenting with smoke.

Highlights: The idea. Very different. Smoke showing sins where everyone can see it is scary and fascinating.

Lowlights: Boring! Slow paced.

FYI: Not an easy read. DNF.

In England, the reign of Smoke has lasted 300 years. It is a portrayal of sin; whenever someone has a sinful thought or deed, smoke pours from every orifice on their body. The rich and powerful don't smoke, or so one would think. They send their children at a young age to boarding schools where they are punished and manipulated until they can control their tendency to smoke.

Boarding school is where Charlie and Thomas meet. One is the son of a powerful aristocratic family, the other a scholarship student whose family was wrecked when his father got into a bar brawl and killed a man. Unlike in every way, somehow they become best friends. They unite against the brutality of the head boy, Julius. Charlie is a good boy and sure that the way society is set up is the best. Thomas has a dark streak he fights against. Slowly, they start to realize that perhaps Smoke is not the way the world is supposed to work. Things they see on a class visit to London (The Great Smoke) make them question why the lower classes must be consumed in sin and smoke while the upper classes rise above all the poverty and crime. Rumors they hear about how England was before the Smoke and how other countries still exist without it make them more curious and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Over break, they visit the country estate of a wealthy family where they hope to pick up some answers. They meet the daughter of the family and both boys develop a fascination for her. They start to discover that the family is the centerpiece of a resistance to the Smoke society; the father driven mad by his studies, the mother drawn into a vast conspiracy to bring down Smoke. Unfortunately, it turns out Julius is the mother's first son although he has been raised by his father elsewhere. When he comes for a visit, he pits himself against the two boys and his half-sister and violence ensues. When the three flee, Julius sets himself as their punisher and starts to track them. Can the three elude Julius and the forces of Smoke long enough to discover the truth

Smoke is a fascinating novel. Vyelta creates a Dicksonian-like environment of downtrodden poor against privileged rich. His world building is first rate and the reader is transported to the vile underground where crime and poverty mix to create an atmosphere of fear but one where people can still be kind and generous. The tension between the three main characters is intriguing, and the reader is torn between supporting the simple kindness of Charlie or the darker interesting personality of Thomas. There is political intrigue and the eternal battle between good and evil. This book is recommended for readers of fantasy.

I surprised myself a little by giving this four stars; all the while I was reading it I'd fully expected to be giving it an easy five. It's so wildly unique, a remarkable recreation of the world with one extraordinary addition. And it's a well-built recreation, a fully realized alternative England with the vital difference of the Smoke.

The Smoke … what a fascinating, wildly unique idea. All of a person's base thoughts and deeds manifest in wisps – or clouds, or billows, depending – of visible matter, leaving a smell in the air and soot on clothing and everything else. And it's self-perpetuating, as its presence in the air sparks off behavior which leads to more Smoke … English culture has warped around the phenomena: theatre is so thoroughly banned that children don't know what it is, and schools seem to concentrate as much on the amount of soot you show as on your grasp of arithmetic. They're certainly not going to br teaching you Shakespeare. Or evolution. (Or about giraffes, for some reason.)

While I admire the tight-lipped style of storytelling – tight alternating points of view, with absolutely none of the dreded "info-dumping" – it was also frustrating at times. How and when and where did the Smoke originate? Is it worldwide? What is the science behind it? Some answers are provided, but only what the main characters discover – and they don't dig for answers to the same questions I was asking.

What took a star away from my rating was, in the end, the direction of the plot and its resolution. As a whole the book seemed to lack a certain clarity. I think part of the problem was that the author succumbed to the temptation of giving the villain of the piece his own point of view sections, and I find that this usually serves to weaken a story. To my mind, it's always better to keep a book's focus on the main characters, letting the reader wonder with them what the bad guys are up to, being surprised when they are when the bad guys pop up, rather than indulging in a bit of evil gloating through the villain's eyes, followed often by a recap of the same scene once the protagonists cover the same ground.

Still and all, it was an impressive, if somewhat chilly book.

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

I am a member of the American Library Association Notable Books Council. This title was suggested for the 2017 list. It was not nominated for the award.