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A review by hadia_00
Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville
3.0
I was forcing myself to read up until around the 310-page, which is obviously not the recipe for a well-written and a possible favourite book. The thing that ruined the whole experience for me was the fact that the synopsis on the inside of the hardcover basically gives up the twist. What's worse is that you keep waiting for that revelation, but it doesn't happen until after you're over 300 pages in, way before which most people DNF the book. I would've been among those people had I not wanted to see what the author was trying to do with the ending.
Another bummer is that even if the synopsis hadn't spoiled the story, you could see the twist yourself from the little hints throughout the book. So, the point is that even if the twist was kinda decent, it just too far into the story and not worth that much wait. The reason I read it was because I thought it was gonna have some solid connection to the classic Hansel and Gretel story, other than just mentions of it. German language was also spoken by characters and left untranslated which really made the story uninteresting at times. I found Krysta's character quite interesting but all of a sudden she just becomes a completely different person towards the end, that was the polar opposite of how she used to be at the start of the book. Could not care one bit about any other character in the entire book, did want some of them dead though.
Overall, this book definitely leaves some stuff to the reader's imagination which is good, but I would've loved a well-crafted story with brilliant character building, so that I had something to care about and stay connected to the story instead of pushing myself to get through it.
*2.75
Another bummer is that even if the synopsis hadn't spoiled the story, you could see the twist yourself from the little hints throughout the book. So, the point is that even if the twist was kinda decent, it just too far into the story and not worth that much wait. The reason I read it was because I thought it was gonna have some solid connection to the classic Hansel and Gretel story, other than just mentions of it. German language was also spoken by characters and left untranslated which really made the story uninteresting at times. I found Krysta's character quite interesting but all of a sudden she just becomes a completely different person towards the end, that was the polar opposite of how she used to be at the start of the book. Could not care one bit about any other character in the entire book, did want some of them dead though.
Overall, this book definitely leaves some stuff to the reader's imagination which is good, but I would've loved a well-crafted story with brilliant character building, so that I had something to care about and stay connected to the story instead of pushing myself to get through it.
*2.75