Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas

1 review

yvo_about_books's review

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3.25

 Finished reading: April 30th 2023


"Memories were a riptide. Innocent enough on the surface, but let your guard down and next thing you know, you're drowning in four feet of water."

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

I've read some of Kara Thomas YA titles in the past, and I remember really enjoying her writing. I was curious to see how her work would translate to adult fiction; combine that with the fact that I was intrigued by the blurb of Out Of The Ashes, and I've been more than curious to pick it up. Now that I've had the chance to finish the book, I'm not sure what to make of it though... I'm not saying it's a bad read, but it did lack that je ne sais quoi that would take this story to the next level for me.

The premise of Out Of The Ashes has without doubt a lot of potential, with the death of the main character's family never solved and her returning to her hometown after so long. Somehow, the execution of the plot didn't really work for me though. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on the why, but I think it has partly to do with the pace itself. The pace is considerably slow during most of the plot, and it took me a lot longer than expected to actually finish what is quite a short book. Somehow, the story never managed to grab me completely, and I kept hoping something would happen that would speed up the pace. Which is strange, because technically a LOT does happen during the story...

I also felt that there were way too many characters introduced, and as a result most of them felt rather one-dimensional and underdeveloped. I struggled to remember where everybody stood in the story, and this only slowed down the pace even more... I also felt that some of the side stories were unnecessary; they didn't add much to the plot nor were they given a satisfying closure to wrap things up. The mystery itself didn't really stand out for me either, and I had mixed thoughts about the way things ended with the mystery around that night so long ago.

The main character Samantha herself has potential, but there were things about her character that annoyed me. And this especially relates to her behavior and the way she keeps putting herself in dangerous situations... I'm not sure her irresponsable behavior fits what her character seems to stand for; either way, it really irritated me. There were also quite a few cliches involved in general, and most of the characters weren't exactly likeable in the first place.

All in all I ended up having mostly mixed thoughts about Out Of The Ashes. Like I said before, it's not a bad read, but it's also sadly not a story that stood out in any way for me. In fact, I much prefer her YA books so far... 
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