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the_cute_shadowy_one's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.25
This book is actually dire. I don't like long reviews generally but it's annoyed me enough to write one. There's going to be spoilers below.
The characters
All of the characters are incredibly shallow and 2D. Which is an awful pity because there could have been some great character concepts.
Let's take the protagonist Fox D'mora. The character with the most building out and focus.
He's the godson of death. He's been alive for the last 200 years. You'd think these things might have an impact on a person. We are told by the narrator that he's a liar, cheat, charming and not a very nice person. You might expect evidence of this and probably a character motivation.
In actuality his entire character is : he sleeps with women, he calls death Papa, he had a bad break up with a boy.
We get one scene at the start where he's acting as a medium. I think to show he's a liar. However he does actually contact death, does ask death the questions about the woman's relative. For some reason just ignores the answers from Death and changes them. He ends up sleeping with the woman. But like why? Why is he a medium? Is it for money? Is it just for getting sex? How often does he do this? If he's just going to lie about the answers why contact Death in the first place? These would be some good starting development questions before we even got to the big ones like you know "Does being the godson of Death affect your perspective on life?", Similar with being 200 years old.
It ends up being kind of shoved in, that Fox has a issue with being called a "mortal" by Death and by his ex Brant. (Look set aside he's been alive for 200 years, he's a mortal by the books definition). Okay so does this mean Fox looks down on other morals for their mortality? Does he respect immortals? Does he want respect? Does he want to be included in this group of concepts? Could not tell you.
Each of the women are done absolutely dirty and basically everything comes back to "ah but at their core, they have a romantic connection to a man". Even the femlae character with the most personality by end turns out to be the wife of the big bad and is just referred as the queen of virtue by the end of the book. Not that this has any noticeable impact on her at all by the way.
There's no real conflict
The characters don't actually ever do anything. Any problem or issue they run into is resolved immediately or the problem is never encountered.
Case in point one of the main characters Viola at the start of the book we get a scene where she is turned into a Filipino Vampire. The folklore behind this seems to be you eat hearts, blood, unborn babies and at night you turn into a cat.
After she's been freshly turned, Viola fully kills her professor. Eats his heart. Are there any consequences for this? No.
She returns home to America. Does she have to find a way to explain her condition or at least a sense to friends, family or co-workers. Nope. Ah sure look her parents are divorced, why would they care about seeing their daughter.
I could go on, but the one that annoyed me most was the cat. She complains that she doesn't like being a cat at night, but there's never any interaction between her and a mortal person when night falls. The type that might cause issues. Then the two paragraphs she's actually a cat and complaining the group move to a different relm and she's just a human for the rest of the book.
Every character that has a problem just gets it solved.
The prose is just bad.
Okay If you are putting sections of your book in the distance past (For example the specific year 1835) You need to distinguish the way people speak back then. At least you should.
What you should definitely not do is reference blantly modern things in these sections. Such as calling the other person persistent as "a virus". Or you know have your characters talk about "adversion therapy"
The amount of things that are so poorly explained and you have characters going "tut tut, if only you had more understanding of the world this would make sense". That's not mysterious! It's actively annoying and it's bad writing.
There are sections written out in the style of a Tumblr post pretending to be a screenplay instead of actual dialogue. It takes up more space in the book and pulls you out more then if you just wrote the dialogue.
What is a reaper? How do the games work?? Why are the ledgers even important???
In conclusion
Look I could go on. I've seen a few reviews that are positive that say this book really makes you think. I can't argue with that. I've really upped my critical reading skills.
The characters
All of the characters are incredibly shallow and 2D. Which is an awful pity because there could have been some great character concepts.
Let's take the protagonist Fox D'mora. The character with the most building out and focus.
He's the godson of death. He's been alive for the last 200 years. You'd think these things might have an impact on a person. We are told by the narrator that he's a liar, cheat, charming and not a very nice person. You might expect evidence of this and probably a character motivation.
In actuality his entire character is : he sleeps with women, he calls death Papa, he had a bad break up with a boy.
We get one scene at the start where he's acting as a medium. I think to show he's a liar. However he does actually contact death, does ask death the questions about the woman's relative. For some reason just ignores the answers from Death and changes them. He ends up sleeping with the woman. But like why? Why is he a medium? Is it for money? Is it just for getting sex? How often does he do this? If he's just going to lie about the answers why contact Death in the first place? These would be some good starting development questions before we even got to the big ones like you know "Does being the godson of Death affect your perspective on life?", Similar with being 200 years old.
It ends up being kind of shoved in, that Fox has a issue with being called a "mortal" by Death and by his ex Brant. (Look set aside he's been alive for 200 years, he's a mortal by the books definition). Okay so does this mean Fox looks down on other morals for their mortality? Does he respect immortals? Does he want respect? Does he want to be included in this group of concepts? Could not tell you.
Each of the women are done absolutely dirty and basically everything comes back to "ah but at their core, they have a romantic connection to a man". Even the femlae character with the most personality by end turns out to be the wife of the big bad and is just referred as the queen of virtue by the end of the book. Not that this has any noticeable impact on her at all by the way.
There's no real conflict
The characters don't actually ever do anything. Any problem or issue they run into is resolved immediately or the problem is never encountered.
Case in point one of the main characters Viola at the start of the book we get a scene where she is turned into a Filipino Vampire. The folklore behind this seems to be you eat hearts, blood, unborn babies and at night you turn into a cat.
After she's been freshly turned, Viola fully kills her professor. Eats his heart. Are there any consequences for this? No.
She returns home to America. Does she have to find a way to explain her condition or at least a sense to friends, family or co-workers. Nope. Ah sure look her parents are divorced, why would they care about seeing their daughter.
I could go on, but the one that annoyed me most was the cat. She complains that she doesn't like being a cat at night, but there's never any interaction between her and a mortal person when night falls. The type that might cause issues. Then the two paragraphs she's actually a cat and complaining the group move to a different relm and she's just a human for the rest of the book.
Every character that has a problem just gets it solved.
The prose is just bad.
Okay If you are putting sections of your book in the distance past (For example the specific year 1835) You need to distinguish the way people speak back then. At least you should.
What you should definitely not do is reference blantly modern things in these sections. Such as calling the other person persistent as "a virus". Or you know have your characters talk about "adversion therapy"
The amount of things that are so poorly explained and you have characters going "tut tut, if only you had more understanding of the world this would make sense". That's not mysterious! It's actively annoying and it's bad writing.
There are sections written out in the style of a Tumblr post pretending to be a screenplay instead of actual dialogue. It takes up more space in the book and pulls you out more then if you just wrote the dialogue.
What is a reaper? How do the games work?? Why are the ledgers even important???
In conclusion
Look I could go on. I've seen a few reviews that are positive that say this book really makes you think. I can't argue with that. I've really upped my critical reading skills.
Content Warnings
Minor: Miscarriage
More...