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goatfellas 's review for:
Januaries: Stories of Love, Magic & Betrayal
by Olivie Blake
DID NOT FINISH
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
DNF at 34% / after 4 stories / on page 133
This was a slog, with juvenile writing, flimsy storytelling, and nothing particularly interesting to say.
I tried. I really tried. But after thinking, "I'm not enjoying this. Maybe I'll try one more?" after every single story, I can't do it. I can't try just one more. I'm not strong enough.
The writing style was unimpressive. It alternated between unsuccessfully attempting a lyrical voice and (much more often) writing in what I've now termed "meme voice"—a quippy, modern-slangy, overly casual tone that often jarred with the fantastical fairytale setting. The two styles together clashed, and neither was wielded with much success.
The short stories themselves seemed to take a very long time to accomplish very little. There was a lot of needlessly convoluted setup, where the only payoff was the exact same cookie-cutter couple falling in love. Again. Seemed extremely roundabout. None of these stories are really "doing anything."
I picked this up because the cover is gorgeous and I thought the seasonal framing would make it a good pick for the start of the year. While the cover remains gorgeous and has thankfully not decayed Dorian Gray-style, even the seasonal framing seems arbitrary. Maybe it becomes clearer with later stories in the collection, but so far there hasn't been anything to tie these stories to their particular season thematically. There's no sense of temporality at all, which seems careless given this collection is structured around time.
I try really hard to finish everything that I pick up by choice. I don't DNF lightly. I can't even remember the last time I outright gave up. But my good will as a reader has been completely squandered and I don't think there's any benefit to continuing—either for myself or for this review, which would probably devolve into angry swearing if I tried to force myself through an insurmountable 200 more pages.
This was a slog, with juvenile writing, flimsy storytelling, and nothing particularly interesting to say.
I tried. I really tried. But after thinking, "I'm not enjoying this. Maybe I'll try one more?" after every single story, I can't do it. I can't try just one more. I'm not strong enough.
The writing style was unimpressive. It alternated between unsuccessfully attempting a lyrical voice and (much more often) writing in what I've now termed "meme voice"—a quippy, modern-slangy, overly casual tone that often jarred with the fantastical fairytale setting. The two styles together clashed, and neither was wielded with much success.
The short stories themselves seemed to take a very long time to accomplish very little. There was a lot of needlessly convoluted setup, where the only payoff was the exact same cookie-cutter couple falling in love. Again. Seemed extremely roundabout. None of these stories are really "doing anything."
I picked this up because the cover is gorgeous and I thought the seasonal framing would make it a good pick for the start of the year. While the cover remains gorgeous and has thankfully not decayed Dorian Gray-style, even the seasonal framing seems arbitrary. Maybe it becomes clearer with later stories in the collection, but so far there hasn't been anything to tie these stories to their particular season thematically. There's no sense of temporality at all, which seems careless given this collection is structured around time.
I try really hard to finish everything that I pick up by choice. I don't DNF lightly. I can't even remember the last time I outright gave up. But my good will as a reader has been completely squandered and I don't think there's any benefit to continuing—either for myself or for this review, which would probably devolve into angry swearing if I tried to force myself through an insurmountable 200 more pages.