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A review by weweresotired
Reaping Me Softly by Kate Evangelista
1.0
See the full review at Short & Sweet Reviews.
There were several times while reading this book that I just flat out put it down and walked away from it, determined to add it to the DNF pile. For some reason, I kept going back to it, mostly because I just hate not knowing how things end. Well, now I do and I still am pretty unsatisfied.
I felt like the writing was stilted sometimes, and the dialogue often suffered from "but people don't really TALK like that" syndrome. There's also some insta-love, although it's on Niko's part -- Ari's crushed on him for years, but he never noticed her until now... and now, of course, he's madly in love with her. The tone of the story switched from being light-hearted when Ari is the focus, to being incredibly dark whenever it focuses on Niko, the Reapers, and Death. I would have gladly read a whole book that focused on Death and his Reapers and the whole society and traditions they have there; unfortunately, they were just a small sliver of this book.
But the biggest thing that almost had me walk away from the book is when an LGBT character was forcibly outed by another character. I don't want to say too much about the situation because it's a spoiler, but, look, I don't care what a person has or hasn't done, there is pretty much no reason in my mind to force someone to come out when they're not ready for it. It happens in real life, of course, but that doesn't mean that it's okay. Yes, this person is a bully, but that sort of retaliation still isn't cool. The outed character is written as someone who "deserved it" and no one really seems concerned with the consequences for that person being outed against their will. This is a plot point that I just was not okay with.
There were several times while reading this book that I just flat out put it down and walked away from it, determined to add it to the DNF pile. For some reason, I kept going back to it, mostly because I just hate not knowing how things end. Well, now I do and I still am pretty unsatisfied.
I felt like the writing was stilted sometimes, and the dialogue often suffered from "but people don't really TALK like that" syndrome. There's also some insta-love, although it's on Niko's part -- Ari's crushed on him for years, but he never noticed her until now... and now, of course, he's madly in love with her. The tone of the story switched from being light-hearted when Ari is the focus, to being incredibly dark whenever it focuses on Niko, the Reapers, and Death. I would have gladly read a whole book that focused on Death and his Reapers and the whole society and traditions they have there; unfortunately, they were just a small sliver of this book.
But the biggest thing that almost had me walk away from the book is when an LGBT character was forcibly outed by another character. I don't want to say too much about the situation because it's a spoiler, but, look, I don't care what a person has or hasn't done, there is pretty much no reason in my mind to force someone to come out when they're not ready for it. It happens in real life, of course, but that doesn't mean that it's okay. Yes, this person is a bully, but that sort of retaliation still isn't cool. The outed character is written as someone who "deserved it" and no one really seems concerned with the consequences for that person being outed against their will. This is a plot point that I just was not okay with.