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A review by opalmars
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
2.0
what a waste of 2 beautiful covers…
Well. This book was boring as shit. I literally couldn’t get into this goddamn book. It was so slow-paced and tedious that I had to give up and DNF at page 153 / 41%. 🫥
The book starts off with an insane amount of exposition. The story kept getting interrupted so we could learn about some random folk tale, which made sense since Lorelei was a folklorist. However, since the plot literally wasn’t moving, these constant interruptions to the very few bits of plot we were actually getting just felt *annoying*. Like, what do you MEEEEAN nothing’s been happening for 30 pages and once something FINALLY starts happening you decide to interrupt it to tell me about some random tale about an old peasant? I don’t care! Just get to the plot already! I’m BEGGING!!! 😫😫😫
Instead of feeling like an interesting way to expand on this world, these folk tales felt like bloating, and became really annoying because there’d be MULTIPLE unnecessary folk tales and just a teeny tiny fraction of plot. It should be the other way around, babe. 🫤 Also, a better way to make the reader understand this world would’ve been a map. This book desperately needed a map.
Let’s talk about the plot (or lack thereof). This is supposed to be a murder mystery. It takes 70 pages for the murder to actually happen, and that first chunk of the book was insanely boring, but whatever. I hoped that at least once we got into the murder mystery the book would actually start to get interesting…….. Yeah…. No…. 🤡🤡🤡
Pretty much nothing, and I mean NOTHING happens in regards to the murder mystery. There is no sleuthing, no investigating, there’s barely even any FEAR from the MC, which is ridiculous, given the fact that THERE’S A MURDERER AMONG YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! Slight spoilers, but on page 107 someone tries to kill Lorelei, and she STILL doesn’t care about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🤡💀🤡💀🤡💀 I thought this would make her finally start doing SOMETHING in regards to the murder, but nope! On page 117 she finds a button in her room (possibly the killer’s?!); all she does is ask 1 person if it’s theirs, they say it isn’t, and she never thinks about it again. 🤦🏻♀️
I read 150+ pages of this goddamn book, and Lorelei NEVER cared about the fact that there is a murderer in her group (that already killed someone, and that literally tried to kill HER). She isn’t scared, she doesn’t investigate, she doesn’t spy on anyone, there’s no sleuthing, no urgency, no stakes. There is NOTHING. Pretty much nothing happens for 150+ pages. It’s insane! And how do you expect me to care about this murder mystery when the next victim herself doesn’t seem to give a shit? 🤡 Absolutely dreadful.
This author has managed to write 2 terrible “murder mysteries” (this one and “Down Comes the Night”), and at this point I am BEGGING her to never attempt it ever again.
Now let’s talk about the relationships. I found the relationships really weird. Ziegler was supposed to be Lorelei’s mentor. She’s known Lorelei for a really long time and literally changed her life, giving Lorelei an opportunity to get a much better life. However, when Ziegler is murdered, Lorelei barely even cares…??? Not only does she not care at all about finding the killer, she also doesn’t seem affected by finding her mentor’s body. She’s barely even sad, and she rarely thinks about this great loss she just suffered.
At some point she says “I am still in mourning”, and I thought *FINALLY*! Lorelei is FINALLY gonna show some emotion about Ziegler’s death! But nope! She continues her sentence, and she actually means “I am still in mourning about our equipment.” (because they’d lost their equipment earlier)…………………………….. I’m sorry, but what the fuck? It’s been like, 1 day since you found this person who supposedly means so much to you MURDERED, and yet you don’t even THINK about her??? What is this?? I genuinely don’t understand it! Is it supposed to show that Lorelei is a sociopath? That she literally doesn’t care about the death of her close ones? I’m genuinely asking…
Lorelei and Sylvia’s relationship was also quite strange. From the very beginning Lorelei is clearly attracted to Sylvia (mentioning “an emotion she preferred not to name” when she looked at her, feeling flustered when they talk, wanting to touch her hair, looking at Sylvia’s lips, etc.). I personally would rather see this attraction develop, rather than have a previously established crush already, but whatever.
What I really didn’t get about Lorelei and Sylvia’s relationship was their hatred for each other. It just didn’t make any sense to me. 😐 Even when it was explained, it made no sense. Lorelei hates Sylvia because she’s smart and cheerful… or something???? It was genuinely so ridiculous I couldn’t even keep track. And I never understood why Sylvia hated Lorelei. Maybe it’s because Lorelei was always rude to Sylvia for no reason, though.
At some point Lorelei really angered Sylvia and refused to do what she *begged*, yet the scene ended with Lorelei saying Sylvia is the only person she can trust… Why??? I genuinely don’t get it 😭. Why was Lorelei being so mean to her only ally, then? It just felt so confusing… Their relationship was just really poorly established, and straight up nonsensical at points.
The main relationships just felt so bizarre. Ziegler was Lorelei’s mentor for YEARS and literally changed her life for the better, yet Lorelei doesn’t feel a thing when she dies. Lorelei hates Sylvia for petty reasons and thinks the worst of her, yet she has a crush on her and says Sylvia is the only person she can trust… It just made no sense. 🫥🫥🫥 The relationships felt completely contradictory. The author should’ve tried to make these relationships make some semblance of sense.
I won’t even go into the side characters because they were mostly irrelevant. In a murder mystery you usually learn about the SCs (aka the suspects) when the MC is investigating, and therefore learning more about them. However, since there’s no investigating in this book, the SCs end up being just glorified decorations for the story. They’re just there. They dislike the MC (everyone does lol, and I kinda do too – it’s incredibly frustrating to follow a MC who doesn’t do anything), and that’s about it. What we learn about the SCs is completely irrelevant, since no one’s trying to find out who the murderer is. They were pointless.
Long story short, this book was incredibly dull, slow-paced and made very little sense, especially when it came to the MC’s emotions (or lack thereof) about the murder and her main relationships. Perhaps the book gets better in the 2nd half, but I won’t torture myself any longer. Shoutout to everyone who managed to get through this slog.
Well. This book was boring as shit. I literally couldn’t get into this goddamn book. It was so slow-paced and tedious that I had to give up and DNF at page 153 / 41%. 🫥
The book starts off with an insane amount of exposition. The story kept getting interrupted so we could learn about some random folk tale, which made sense since Lorelei was a folklorist. However, since the plot literally wasn’t moving, these constant interruptions to the very few bits of plot we were actually getting just felt *annoying*. Like, what do you MEEEEAN nothing’s been happening for 30 pages and once something FINALLY starts happening you decide to interrupt it to tell me about some random tale about an old peasant? I don’t care! Just get to the plot already! I’m BEGGING!!! 😫😫😫
Instead of feeling like an interesting way to expand on this world, these folk tales felt like bloating, and became really annoying because there’d be MULTIPLE unnecessary folk tales and just a teeny tiny fraction of plot. It should be the other way around, babe. 🫤 Also, a better way to make the reader understand this world would’ve been a map. This book desperately needed a map.
Let’s talk about the plot (or lack thereof). This is supposed to be a murder mystery. It takes 70 pages for the murder to actually happen, and that first chunk of the book was insanely boring, but whatever. I hoped that at least once we got into the murder mystery the book would actually start to get interesting…….. Yeah…. No…. 🤡🤡🤡
Pretty much nothing, and I mean NOTHING happens in regards to the murder mystery. There is no sleuthing, no investigating, there’s barely even any FEAR from the MC, which is ridiculous, given the fact that THERE’S A MURDERER AMONG YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! Slight spoilers, but on page 107 someone tries to kill Lorelei, and she STILL doesn’t care about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🤡💀🤡💀🤡💀 I thought this would make her finally start doing SOMETHING in regards to the murder, but nope! On page 117 she finds a button in her room (possibly the killer’s?!); all she does is ask 1 person if it’s theirs, they say it isn’t, and she never thinks about it again. 🤦🏻♀️
I read 150+ pages of this goddamn book, and Lorelei NEVER cared about the fact that there is a murderer in her group (that already killed someone, and that literally tried to kill HER). She isn’t scared, she doesn’t investigate, she doesn’t spy on anyone, there’s no sleuthing, no urgency, no stakes. There is NOTHING. Pretty much nothing happens for 150+ pages. It’s insane! And how do you expect me to care about this murder mystery when the next victim herself doesn’t seem to give a shit? 🤡 Absolutely dreadful.
This author has managed to write 2 terrible “murder mysteries” (this one and “Down Comes the Night”), and at this point I am BEGGING her to never attempt it ever again.
Now let’s talk about the relationships. I found the relationships really weird. Ziegler was supposed to be Lorelei’s mentor. She’s known Lorelei for a really long time and literally changed her life, giving Lorelei an opportunity to get a much better life. However, when Ziegler is murdered, Lorelei barely even cares…??? Not only does she not care at all about finding the killer, she also doesn’t seem affected by finding her mentor’s body. She’s barely even sad, and she rarely thinks about this great loss she just suffered.
At some point she says “I am still in mourning”, and I thought *FINALLY*! Lorelei is FINALLY gonna show some emotion about Ziegler’s death! But nope! She continues her sentence, and she actually means “I am still in mourning about our equipment.” (because they’d lost their equipment earlier)…………………………….. I’m sorry, but what the fuck? It’s been like, 1 day since you found this person who supposedly means so much to you MURDERED, and yet you don’t even THINK about her??? What is this?? I genuinely don’t understand it! Is it supposed to show that Lorelei is a sociopath? That she literally doesn’t care about the death of her close ones? I’m genuinely asking…
Lorelei and Sylvia’s relationship was also quite strange. From the very beginning Lorelei is clearly attracted to Sylvia (mentioning “an emotion she preferred not to name” when she looked at her, feeling flustered when they talk, wanting to touch her hair, looking at Sylvia’s lips, etc.). I personally would rather see this attraction develop, rather than have a previously established crush already, but whatever.
What I really didn’t get about Lorelei and Sylvia’s relationship was their hatred for each other. It just didn’t make any sense to me. 😐 Even when it was explained, it made no sense. Lorelei hates Sylvia because she’s smart and cheerful… or something???? It was genuinely so ridiculous I couldn’t even keep track. And I never understood why Sylvia hated Lorelei. Maybe it’s because Lorelei was always rude to Sylvia for no reason, though.
At some point Lorelei really angered Sylvia and refused to do what she *begged*, yet the scene ended with Lorelei saying Sylvia is the only person she can trust… Why??? I genuinely don’t get it 😭. Why was Lorelei being so mean to her only ally, then? It just felt so confusing… Their relationship was just really poorly established, and straight up nonsensical at points.
The main relationships just felt so bizarre. Ziegler was Lorelei’s mentor for YEARS and literally changed her life for the better, yet Lorelei doesn’t feel a thing when she dies. Lorelei hates Sylvia for petty reasons and thinks the worst of her, yet she has a crush on her and says Sylvia is the only person she can trust… It just made no sense. 🫥🫥🫥 The relationships felt completely contradictory. The author should’ve tried to make these relationships make some semblance of sense.
I won’t even go into the side characters because they were mostly irrelevant. In a murder mystery you usually learn about the SCs (aka the suspects) when the MC is investigating, and therefore learning more about them. However, since there’s no investigating in this book, the SCs end up being just glorified decorations for the story. They’re just there. They dislike the MC (everyone does lol, and I kinda do too – it’s incredibly frustrating to follow a MC who doesn’t do anything), and that’s about it. What we learn about the SCs is completely irrelevant, since no one’s trying to find out who the murderer is. They were pointless.
Long story short, this book was incredibly dull, slow-paced and made very little sense, especially when it came to the MC’s emotions (or lack thereof) about the murder and her main relationships. Perhaps the book gets better in the 2nd half, but I won’t torture myself any longer. Shoutout to everyone who managed to get through this slog.