This week we are discussing The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd, Ch. 12-18.
Content Warning!!! This book contains situations and subjects related to: parental death, murder, blood, fire, kidnapping.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post is full of spoilers for The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd.
Discussion:
Michaela: Hello friends and welcome to our second discussion of The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd. I think things have definitely picked up in this middle section of the book. The beginning was a smidge slow for me but now we’re getting somewhere. Empty spaces created out of phantom locations on maps, so freaking cool. I am obsessed with that idea! Also, a far more impressive subject for the Dreamer’s Atlas than fantasy vs real world maps in my opinion.’
Jacilyn: Don’t get me wrong, I would have bought the Dreamer’s Atlas in its original iteration, but it was far from a unique idea. Just yesterday I found a similar book in our nonfiction section! I thought the idea of actual magical phantom settlements that you can’t access without a map to be a really unique idea. This book as a whole has been unlike anything I’ve read before, and it’s made me a lot more interested in maps than I was previously. I’ve always enjoyed the maps in books and video games and things like that, but I’ve never really learned much about them as an art form.
There was definitely a lot more excitement in this section. There was another murder, which honestly I was NOT anticipating Irene to become a victim. I was truly convinced that she was one of the bad guys in this story, but nope, now she’s dead. And, Nell ended up being attacked, just like we knew would happen! Thankfully some of the other Cartographers were there to help. I had a feeling that Francis and Eve would end up having a full-blown affair, but I was actually kind of surprised that Wally is basically working on things behind the others backs. Obviously he becomes the big bad buy in the long run (if our assumptions are correct, which I think we can safely assume they are) but I was honestly expecting Tam’s death to have been the catalyst for that change, the eventual betrayal.
Michaela: This book is pretty different from most things I’ve read before and it’s been really fun reading something different. I have not been able to predict anything that's happened which is also super fun, I have had a few jaw drop moments for sure!
Right now I’m confused on where Wally went from excited and ready for team work to secretive and lets steal every map that exists. Clearly Daniel’s letter to Dr. Johannson triggered his change but why? I’m really interested to know his thought process here. He also escalated to hurting people to get to these maps really early on. I think the fire will be Wally trying to burn all their work to the ground so no one can find Agloe but him, and Tam just gets caught in it. He’s spiraling right now. The whole affair situation is so uninteresting to me when all this other stuff is going on, like it’s important to the story because that’s how they discover what Wally is doing but just not something that interests me. Every time Eve or Francis start to talk in detail about what they got up to I’m just like “get over it, get back to the story”.
I again think that even this new Dreamer’s Atlas is kind of a naive and not fully thought through idea. Which is maybe why Wally is being all weird. You can’t just tell the world there’s phantom places on maps that anyone can access with the right map. To the cartography world it's all “oh wow this is a huge breakthrough”, but with the general public it would honestly cause chaos. Anything magic, alien, weird, or just even something a little too interesting is so quickly turned to being “evil”, used to take advantage of others, and just misused in general. I don’t think I would have discovered this place and immediately thought we should share it with everyone. It’s also kind of creepy, I’m wondering if the magicalness of it actually does affect their thought processes or if it’s just the adrenaline of finding a place that doesn’t exist.
Jacilyn: I totally agree that this new idea is still pretty naive and not fully thought out. I honestly don’t know how they could possibly think that something good would come of this. Your comment on whether Agloe might be affecting their thought process is actually really interesting, I hadn’t thought of that before but I think you could be onto something. You’re right in that Wally’s intentions seemed to change rather suddenly and I’m still not entirely certain what his goal was back then. I’m not even 100% certain what his goal is contemporaneously. Is this giant, invasive map just his life’s obsession? Is it to make the map itself, or is it the money and power he gains in its creation? I still have a lot of questions in regards to his motivations and intentions.
I have to say, I called it with Humphrey being Bear. It really does explain so much about his affection for Nell, and the fact that he was at her father’s funeral. Not actually just to be “moral support,” but also to mourn an old friend. One of my favorite things about the Cartographers as a friend group is the way they all love Nell so much. They were one big family, and Humphrey was able to continue to love and care for Nell in his own way. If he ends up being a bad character in any way I will be so disappointed.
Michaela: If Humphrey turns out to the bad guy I might actually die of sadness. He is such a nice and warm person and the only one who actually offered help and a relationship to Nell even if she didn’t know who he was. I feel like Bear was just there for the friendship of the group and just went along with all the map stuff because he just wanted to be involved.
Well friends, I think that’s it for this discussion! While we finally got some honest answers out of a lot of characters there wasn’t a whole lot of action. I’m excited to see where this story goes because right now I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen! Until next time friends!
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