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3.28 AVERAGE
3.28 AVERAGE
The first part of the book feels like a historical novel. Strange, but still realistic. It isn't until the second part of the book that it starts to be more haunting mysterious and feels like a dark fairytale.. I like Grace and became more curious about the Master. I just wanted to keep reading. The writing and story really drew me in. It had parts where I thought about stopping with reading, but on the other hand I also loved some parts. This makes it harder to rate, but giving it 4 stars feels good. Not sure how I feel about the ending, should I love or hate it? I can see both sides. I think the ending does work very well for this book.
This week I opened up Nocturne by Alyssa Wees, a gift granted to me by the publishers Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and Del Rey via NetGalley. I know absolutely nothing about ballerina-ing (that’s a word right?), but I loved the summary of this book so I decided to wish for it.
My wish was granted and I received a free copy of the book. The review below is reflective of my honest and voluntary opinions.
What I liked about the book:
1. That cover is gorgeous. Something about it is breathtakingly haunting and so avant-garde that I knew I was hooked after seeing it.
2. Overall, I liked the idea behind this story. I don’t want to spoil too much, but this definitely had a mythological feel to it, which I was absolutely crazy for! I love stories within stories and the worldbuilding that goes into fantasy-laden stories is usually so interesting to me. This was no exception.
3. Overall, I did enjoy the lyrical writing style the author employed. There were A LOT of descriptors used on the simplest of things. If done right, I absolutely love this approach. To me, it’s why I love Orwell and Bradbury: taking a simple thought or topic and strangling words out of it until you feel every word connecting you to the story; as though every word breathes fresh energy into you. However, if done wrong, it just feels exhausting.
I see a lot of reviews for this book with this as a critique. To me, I did not mind, and even enjoyed, the writing style. What I did not enjoy was waiting so long to understand where those beautiful words were taking me (see item 1 in the “What could have been better” section).
What could have been better:
1. What at times was reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, The Phantom of the Opera, and Hades and Persephone, somehow managed to feel uneventful. I was waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen, for some big reveal to come, for the other ballet slipper to drop, and it didn’t really do it for me when it did. Instead of being a large *BANG!* of excitement, the “reveal” was a slow *fizzzzzzzle*. It was pretty easy to figure out early on what it was going to be, but then it wasn’t really satisfactorily done in my opinion.
On top of this, I felt like the main story didn’t really take off until about 55-60% of the way through the book. I swore when we were this deep into the story and she had just started meeting the other MCs, that this was going to be a duology. So, of course, I stopped reading and scoured Goodreads and the author’s website to see when the next book was going to come out. End result: this isn’t a duology, it just wasn’t set up well. With all the fluff in the front of the book and the meat of the book not really happening until the last half, it was hard to become attached to any of the characters or the plot.
2. My biggest gripe was the character development. Bottom-line, there wasn’t any for 2 of the 3 main characters. For a book praised as a “dark romance” and a “lush gothic romance that will dance you dizzy”, I found exactly zero romance in this thing, which makes sense when you realize the author only expands on one character for the entire book.
Furthermore, I did not feel a connection to the main character, Grace. She wasn’t annoyingly perfect or relatedly flawed; she wasn’t over the top silly or fiery fierce. She just was, which I found a bit boring for a main character that acted as really the sole character for such a large amount of the book.
3. As much as I loved the mythological feel, I didn’t feel like we got enough backstory into it. I would much rather have focused on the deal between the brothers and who they were as characters, than read over and over again how this chick wanted to jump out of a window.
Final Rating: 2.5 stars
My wish was granted and I received a free copy of the book. The review below is reflective of my honest and voluntary opinions.
What I liked about the book:
1. That cover is gorgeous. Something about it is breathtakingly haunting and so avant-garde that I knew I was hooked after seeing it.
2. Overall, I liked the idea behind this story. I don’t want to spoil too much, but this definitely had a mythological feel to it, which I was absolutely crazy for! I love stories within stories and the worldbuilding that goes into fantasy-laden stories is usually so interesting to me. This was no exception.
3. Overall, I did enjoy the lyrical writing style the author employed. There were A LOT of descriptors used on the simplest of things. If done right, I absolutely love this approach. To me, it’s why I love Orwell and Bradbury: taking a simple thought or topic and strangling words out of it until you feel every word connecting you to the story; as though every word breathes fresh energy into you. However, if done wrong, it just feels exhausting.
I see a lot of reviews for this book with this as a critique. To me, I did not mind, and even enjoyed, the writing style. What I did not enjoy was waiting so long to understand where those beautiful words were taking me (see item 1 in the “What could have been better” section).
What could have been better:
1. What at times was reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, The Phantom of the Opera, and Hades and Persephone, somehow managed to feel uneventful. I was waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen, for some big reveal to come, for the other ballet slipper to drop, and it didn’t really do it for me when it did. Instead of being a large *BANG!* of excitement, the “reveal” was a slow *fizzzzzzzle*. It was pretty easy to figure out early on what it was going to be, but then it wasn’t really satisfactorily done in my opinion.
On top of this, I felt like the main story didn’t really take off until about 55-60% of the way through the book. I swore when we were this deep into the story and she had just started meeting the other MCs, that this was going to be a duology. So, of course, I stopped reading and scoured Goodreads and the author’s website to see when the next book was going to come out. End result: this isn’t a duology, it just wasn’t set up well. With all the fluff in the front of the book and the meat of the book not really happening until the last half, it was hard to become attached to any of the characters or the plot.
2. My biggest gripe was the character development. Bottom-line, there wasn’t any for 2 of the 3 main characters. For a book praised as a “dark romance” and a “lush gothic romance that will dance you dizzy”, I found exactly zero romance in this thing, which makes sense when you realize the author only expands on one character for the entire book.
Furthermore, I did not feel a connection to the main character, Grace. She wasn’t annoyingly perfect or relatedly flawed; she wasn’t over the top silly or fiery fierce. She just was, which I found a bit boring for a main character that acted as really the sole character for such a large amount of the book.
3. As much as I loved the mythological feel, I didn’t feel like we got enough backstory into it. I would much rather have focused on the deal between the brothers and who they were as characters, than read over and over again how this chick wanted to jump out of a window.
Final Rating: 2.5 stars
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Overall it's an interesting story. The plot is not the point, the emotions are. The ending felt good and right. I think it was a good interpretation of the myth and I also think this would be a fantastic book club book. A lot of discussion potential.
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Ich muss leider sagen, dass ich etwas enttäuscht bin. Ich fand den Anfang nämlich sehr stark. Das Setting und die Atmosphäre ist großartig und ich finde den Schreibstil sehr mitreißend. Leider hat das Buch nicht so viel mehr zu bieten. Grace ist als Protagonistin leider nachdem man ihre Backstory hört etwas langweilig und das obwohl sie eigene Ambitionen am Anfang hatte. Es dauert super lange, bis Übernatürliches eingeführt wird und dann versteht man es meiner Meinung nach nicht wirklich (aber nicht auf eine Horror/Gothic/Mystery-Art, sondern auf eine Art, die verwirrt). Die Verbindung zu Hades und Persephone kam mir erzwungen vor und verstanden habe ich das auch nicht. Die Story zwischen Grace und dem Master (was ist das schon 😭) und auch die komische Brüder-Sache waren leider sehr Strandard für diese Art von Geschichte - und leider fallen mir bessere Var ante ein. Das Buch ist also nur Vibe und wenn man das will okay, aber mehr halt nicht.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent
Minor: Violence, Blood, Grief
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am all for a Phantom of the Opera retelling. Im also down for a beauty and the beast retelling, as well as a Hades and Persephone retelling. I don’t really enjoy having every single one all at once through the perspective of a character I simply don’t like. The plot felt like a few different ideas thrown into one book, as if the author didn’t quite know which retelling she wanted to settle with. I know that some books can do multiple - ish retellings in one go, but they have to have attention to detail and not feel as if its a bit of everything nearly haphazardly sewn together. Don’t get me wrong, the atmosphere of this book is stunning. I love the way it feels a bit haunted in the beginning and a bit coldish if that makes sense? I just didn’t necessarily connect with our main character, I found her to be insufferable to be honest. The writing style is definitely for some people, even those I’m close to, but I don’t particularly enjoy it much either. I am thankful I got to read it, but I didn’t like it.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes