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A review by undertheteacup
Shadows & Dreams by Alexis Hall
3.0
2.5/5
I thoroughly enjoyed the first half but found myself rather bored towards the end. The story is chock-full of classic noir and paranormal fantasy tropes being poked at in really quite humorous ways, and I appreciated that the narrative didn't take itself too seriously. For a while it really rode that line between leaning into the tropey goodness (hardboiled private investigator who drinks too much, has a fridged business partner, a trail of Bad News ex-girlfriends, self-destructive tastes, etc.) while also maintaining that playful self-awareness.
But it felt like at some point there wasn't enough substance or emotional truth to hold things together. Kate doesn't learn anything or grow in any way, none of her trauma really gets explored, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why we were supposed to be rooting for her current relationship - despite the supposedly sizzling sexual chemistry (conveyed by the fact that Kate and Julian have sex every chance they can get) I had no sense of what makes Julian interesting, special, different from any of the ex-girlfriends. Besides the obvious drama of being a vampire prince.
I found it rather depressing. If this weren't a romance I would've thought that was the point, that we're supposed to be watching Kate try to drown her sorrows in sex that's full of dramatics but that she's not really present for the same way she drowns her sorrows in alcohol, and that eventually we'll see her realize that and.. come to her senses? But then this has the Carina HEA/HFN promise, so it doesn't seem like "watch this character hit rock bottom through her relationship" is the intention.
Content warning: aside from the genre-standard stuff like drinking and drunkenness, fantasy violence, mortal danger, rough sex, ritual sacrifice, etc. there was also a couple pages of glaring fatphobia and constant use of the word "psychotic" to mean murderous, violent, evil. Constant. It was really yucky.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first half but found myself rather bored towards the end. The story is chock-full of classic noir and paranormal fantasy tropes being poked at in really quite humorous ways, and I appreciated that the narrative didn't take itself too seriously. For a while it really rode that line between leaning into the tropey goodness (hardboiled private investigator who drinks too much, has a fridged business partner, a trail of Bad News ex-girlfriends, self-destructive tastes, etc.) while also maintaining that playful self-awareness.
But it felt like at some point there wasn't enough substance or emotional truth to hold things together. Kate doesn't learn anything or grow in any way, none of her trauma really gets explored, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why we were supposed to be rooting for her current relationship - despite the supposedly sizzling sexual chemistry (conveyed by the fact that Kate and Julian have sex every chance they can get) I had no sense of what makes Julian interesting, special, different from any of the ex-girlfriends. Besides the obvious drama of being a vampire prince.
I found it rather depressing. If this weren't a romance I would've thought that was the point, that we're supposed to be watching Kate try to drown her sorrows in sex that's full of dramatics but that she's not really present for the same way she drowns her sorrows in alcohol, and that eventually we'll see her realize that and.. come to her senses? But then this has the Carina HEA/HFN promise, so it doesn't seem like "watch this character hit rock bottom through her relationship" is the intention.
Content warning: aside from the genre-standard stuff like drinking and drunkenness, fantasy violence, mortal danger, rough sex, ritual sacrifice, etc. there was also a couple pages of glaring fatphobia and constant use of the word "psychotic" to mean murderous, violent, evil. Constant. It was really yucky.