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bookreader460 's review for:
Reverence
by Milena McKay
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was disappointing. The premise is something that I am totally in love with. Ballerina? 80s? The Soviet Union? Enemies to lovers? Sign me up. But the execution was a bit lacking. It felt as though large swaths of time were skipped and the reader was meant to fill in the holes. Like once we got to the kitchen scene where the two mains almost kiss, I thought it was going to continue to be an ultra slow burn. But instead they mention things that we the audience don't see that would increase the connection between the two, but because we don't see it, we don't feel that connection. The audience also doesn't get a lot of time with Katarina. All of her 'lore' (and I do mean 'lore' because that is what it feels like) gets dumped on the audience in two big sections. These sections are also the only real time that we get to learn about her as a person. There are small periods of time where we do, but then again - we don't get to know enough. It skips all over the place in terms of time which is frustrating, so maybe only 10% of the book is actually the two together. The two mains also don't seem to truly trust each other or want to talk their issues through. Very frustrating. The spicy scenes are also meh. I wish the drama that this book promised was actually present instead of jumping around everywhere. Also the person who sabatoges Juliette is never properly foreshadowed. There was an opportunity to do so, but the author chose to make it someone else instead of one of the people it could've been foreshadowed to be. Once I realized all of the potential that this has but was wasting, it was very difficult to finish. I had to power through the last 20% of the novel because of that. TLDR; The premise is amazing but the execution was very flawed. I would not recommend this book.