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an_everyday_penguin's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
My friend told me to read this and if/when she sees this she's going to be so mad at me. But also, I did spend the entire book pointing out and complaining about a lot of things. To be fair, she read this when she was the same age as these characters aka the target demographic and I am not. Not that you can't read books that aren't targeted towards your age group, but I'm at a point where I want a little more grown up characters. I also don't think I should read more first person books because something about being stuck that much in a character's head is really annoying. I feel like my most recent disliked books have all been in first person. Anyway, onto some thoughts about the actual book.
Anna Whitt... She has got to be one of the most annoying characters I've ever read about. I could not stand this girl. She has such a massive good girl superiority complex, which like, it's fine if you don't want to drink/don't want to do drugs, but I feel like she felt like she disapproved of all that so much and looked down on some of her classmates. Okay, these characters are underage, but I don't know, her attitude annoyed me a lot of the time. I'm also definitely over the teenage romance melodrama. Adults can totally have romance melodrama, but it's not usually like 'the guy I like won't pick up my calls, I'm going to lay in bed and cry all day, he probably HATES me, oh god is life even worth living?' Like, something great happened to her friend and she could barely feel happy for him because she was thinking of Kaiden. I feel like for her human friends she's using her powers on them to make them like her and for the non human people, they're just interested in her because she's an anomaly in their world/to their kind. Also because they weren't stuck in her head. She was generally just judgmental and annoying and self absorbed and I get that she's 16 and it's first person so of course there's going to be a lot more of herself and her life and thoughts and whatever, but it made it hard to read. Like, things felt so slow despite it being a pretty fast read and my friend said it was because I had to complain about Anna every other paragraph (not wrong), but anyway.
Kaiden is just the typical YA bad boy type. I don't hate him, I don't love him. I think he's more interesting than Anna, but a piece of bread is more interesting than her so that's not saying much. He did kind of fall off in the second half of the book, like I could feel the romantic storyline was progressing in the first half, and then he like, disappeared. I get his reasoning, it's always the same reasoning with these types of characters (he's the bad boy, you can probably guess it) and I don't hold it against him, but it just made it harder to become more invested in their relationship. Somehow, I think there should have been a little more of him and his character? I don't actually have a lot to say about him, surprisingly, but I also don't have much to say about any of the other characters. They were all just okay. For once there's a YA fantasy/paranormal story where the parent(s) are not out of the picture for whatever reason, so that was interesting. Everyone else was just hard for me to care about.
I feel like I need to talk about the ending really quickly, mostly because it felt very rushed. The plot moves relatively fast, and it's pretty steady, but then the last few chapters kept skipping months ahead and it felt like it was going a lot faster. I like darker stories and so there were a few times when I thought things were going to get super juicy and interesting, and then they just didn't. So there were a few disappointments, but I didn't really expect them to happen so it wasn't too bad.
Did I have a good time reading this? Not really. Did I hate every moment I was reading it? Also not really. It was kind of entertaining in a 'wow this book is kinda trash' way and I might have loved it when I was 16, who knows. Unless my friend forces me to, I probably won't finish the series. This was published in 2012, and it sort of has that vibe and a lot of tropes from then. I'm not gonna hate on it for that, but it's definitely just not for me.
Anna Whitt... She has got to be one of the most annoying characters I've ever read about. I could not stand this girl. She has such a massive good girl superiority complex, which like, it's fine if you don't want to drink/don't want to do drugs, but I feel like she felt like she disapproved of all that so much and looked down on some of her classmates. Okay, these characters are underage, but I don't know, her attitude annoyed me a lot of the time. I'm also definitely over the teenage romance melodrama. Adults can totally have romance melodrama, but it's not usually like 'the guy I like won't pick up my calls, I'm going to lay in bed and cry all day, he probably HATES me, oh god is life even worth living?' Like, something great happened to her friend and she could barely feel happy for him because she was thinking of Kaiden. I feel like for her human friends she's using her powers on them to make them like her and for the non human people, they're just interested in her because she's an anomaly in their world/to their kind. Also because they weren't stuck in her head. She was generally just judgmental and annoying and self absorbed and I get that she's 16 and it's first person so of course there's going to be a lot more of herself and her life and thoughts and whatever, but it made it hard to read. Like, things felt so slow despite it being a pretty fast read and my friend said it was because I had to complain about Anna every other paragraph (not wrong), but anyway.
Kaiden is just the typical YA bad boy type. I don't hate him, I don't love him. I think he's more interesting than Anna, but a piece of bread is more interesting than her so that's not saying much. He did kind of fall off in the second half of the book, like I could feel the romantic storyline was progressing in the first half, and then he like, disappeared. I get his reasoning, it's always the same reasoning with these types of characters (he's the bad boy, you can probably guess it) and I don't hold it against him, but it just made it harder to become more invested in their relationship. Somehow, I think there should have been a little more of him and his character? I don't actually have a lot to say about him, surprisingly, but I also don't have much to say about any of the other characters. They were all just okay. For once there's a YA fantasy/paranormal story where the parent(s) are not out of the picture for whatever reason, so that was interesting. Everyone else was just hard for me to care about.
I feel like I need to talk about the ending really quickly, mostly because it felt very rushed. The plot moves relatively fast, and it's pretty steady, but then the last few chapters kept skipping months ahead and it felt like it was going a lot faster. I like darker stories and so there were a few times when I thought things were going to get super juicy and interesting, and then they just didn't. So there were a few disappointments, but I didn't really expect them to happen so it wasn't too bad.
Did I have a good time reading this? Not really. Did I hate every moment I was reading it? Also not really. It was kind of entertaining in a 'wow this book is kinda trash' way and I might have loved it when I was 16, who knows. Unless my friend forces me to, I probably won't finish the series. This was published in 2012, and it sort of has that vibe and a lot of tropes from then. I'm not gonna hate on it for that, but it's definitely just not for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol
Moderate: Drug use
elderflower's review against another edition
0.25
CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS REVIEW: swearing
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKK?
I CANT EVEN WITH THIS BOOK. I KNEW IT WOULD BE SHIT FROM THE EARLY 2000s YA BOOK COVER BUT WHAT THE FUCK THE FUCK THE FUCK
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKK?
I CANT EVEN WITH THIS BOOK. I KNEW IT WOULD BE SHIT FROM THE EARLY 2000s YA BOOK COVER BUT WHAT THE FUCK THE FUCK THE FUCK
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Violence
Minor: Cursing, Incest, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, and Sexual content
more content warnings: demons, ableist language, underage drinking, drugged drink, slut shaming, s*x trafficking, dressing up as a witch, subtle pro life messaging, purity culture
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