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lavenderxohuang 's review for:
By Sin I Rise: Part One
by Cora Reilly
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Honestly quite disappointed. The author wrote one of my favorite series (i.e. Camorra Chronicles) but I feel like the writing skills have really gone down in quality with her last few books. This one is just as big a disappointment. I felt absolutely nothing during the whole read. The plot, the characters, the dialogues were all extremely flat. Plus if I have to hear one more mention of "cream" I'm going to pull my hair out. While I was intrigued by Marcella Vitiello and how she owns her privileged upbringing/lifestyle, she didn't bring much else to the table. We were TOLD she's smart and top of the class, but I didn't see examples of her intelligence in the story. Maddox - Mad Dog - White was so inconsistent to me and didn't have much of a presence at all. We were TOLD he's been consumed by getting revenge ever since watching Luca butcher his entire biker family, including his own dad, but he confesses to not having any great memories with his dad and insta-falling-in-love with the enemy's daughter once she was kidnapped. He tried so hard to say he's loyal and he's bled more than anyone for the biker family, but from how no one listened to him or respected him, I really couldn't believe a single word. ALSO, he so easily SNITCHED on people he swore to be loyal towards.... so, he's just flaky. I didn't think there was any chemistry between Maddox and Marcella, and it all felt rushed. Amo's "character development" doesn't make sense to me either. One moment he plays video games and gets with the girls ( he's only 15 and already HUGE apparently??), the next moment he is ready to maim/murder and looking up torture techniques. Lastly, Marcella wanting to take charge of the Enforcers came out of no where!! All in all, I felt absolutely no emotional connection to the book. The only "dark part" was there was actually physical torture (tattoo, cutting of earlobe).