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jennaelf's review
4.0
3.5, really, but I rounded up for Amazon.
This is the kind of book I've been wanting for most of my reading life. It's gritty, grimy, supernatural... The hero is not lovable, he's not cut from the charming but jerkish cloth of many anti-heroes. He is a man given a crap job and doing it the best he knows how. The romance is not predictable and it isn't a hinge-point for the plot of the book. There's no smut. It's a wild ride, and it feels BIG.
Like some of the other lower-star reviews (and sometimes you can weigh the value of a book by the thoughtfulness that goes into the lower/average star reviews - this is one of those books), I had the sense that this book was more like the ending of a bigger arc. I got that feeling a lot. As though I ought already know and be comfortable/familiar with the cast of intriguing characters that danced across the pages - I WISHED that it were so. Seeing a series of stories that built up the relationships between the Night Marshal and his wards, which would make the weight of Half-Made Girls all the more convincing.
As an example of what I mean: I'm a crier... Given all the violence, certainly there's death. I can cry at Folger's commercials because of the way they build up a figure in the thing. I didn't cry for some of the folks I probably OUGHT to have shed at least a single tear for in Half-Made Girls. (I did tear up a bit, not over a death, later in the book though - so, it's not like it didn't touch me at all!)
Overall, engaging and well-written story. Sometimes the gore or the violence bordered on "too much" (not in the sense that I got grossed out or uncomfortable, but that I actually got a bit bored reading through it), but it never quite crossed the line into gratuity, given the flavor and texture of the overall text.
I would love to see more about Pitchfork County, but wowzers - how do you go UP from battling a god? It's a tall order, but one I sincerely hope Mr. Witt is up to filling.
This is the kind of book I've been wanting for most of my reading life. It's gritty, grimy, supernatural... The hero is not lovable, he's not cut from the charming but jerkish cloth of many anti-heroes. He is a man given a crap job and doing it the best he knows how. The romance is not predictable and it isn't a hinge-point for the plot of the book. There's no smut. It's a wild ride, and it feels BIG.
Like some of the other lower-star reviews (and sometimes you can weigh the value of a book by the thoughtfulness that goes into the lower/average star reviews - this is one of those books), I had the sense that this book was more like the ending of a bigger arc. I got that feeling a lot. As though I ought already know and be comfortable/familiar with the cast of intriguing characters that danced across the pages - I WISHED that it were so. Seeing a series of stories that built up the relationships between the Night Marshal and his wards, which would make the weight of Half-Made Girls all the more convincing.
As an example of what I mean: I'm a crier... Given all the violence, certainly there's death. I can cry at Folger's commercials because of the way they build up a figure in the thing. I didn't cry for some of the folks I probably OUGHT to have shed at least a single tear for in Half-Made Girls. (I did tear up a bit, not over a death, later in the book though - so, it's not like it didn't touch me at all!)
Overall, engaging and well-written story. Sometimes the gore or the violence bordered on "too much" (not in the sense that I got grossed out or uncomfortable, but that I actually got a bit bored reading through it), but it never quite crossed the line into gratuity, given the flavor and texture of the overall text.
I would love to see more about Pitchfork County, but wowzers - how do you go UP from battling a god? It's a tall order, but one I sincerely hope Mr. Witt is up to filling.
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