A review by rai_ishardtoplease
As the Fallen Rise by Sadie Hewitt

dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

(ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. Thank you… and I apologize in advance. Kinda.)

“Oh my, we are behind, aren’t we.”
- this book, in a nutshell

This should’ve taken me, at most, 2 days to read.
It took me nearly a month to trudge my way through this. It would’ve taken even longer than that had I not been shooting for the ARC reviews deadline.
(Fruitlessly, might I add, since I still missed it by a long shot)

What a chore this was to finish.
If I’m being generous, the story doesn’t truly begin until almost halfway through, which is roughly how long it takes for the heroine to catch up to what the reader knows.
Believe me, I wish that was a joke.
There’s a lot about this that I wish was a joke. The inciting incident—involving a creep attacking the FMC in a dark alley—being one of them. 
I swear, someone needs to conduct a survey to determine the percentage of paranormal/urban fantasy stories that feature an FMC’s dormant powers being awakened by some form of assault.

Nah, never mind. I’m not sure I want to know.

Moving on.
If you’re here for a plot breakdown, go find… literally any other review. Throw a rock in any direction and you’ll probably hit one. I just don’t have it in me to pick it apart. I did most of that in my Goodreads reading activity, anyway.
I will, however, offer a few bullet points of storytelling advice:
  • First and foremost: consider a rebrand, Mrs. Hewitt. Posthaste. Neither the title nor the cover give the impression that this is a paranormal urban fantasy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the poor reviews and DNFs start rolling in simply because readers felt misled about what they were signing up for.
  • You have to STOP projecting your author’s insight onto your characters and START asking yourself “How would someone reasonably and organically respond to xyz.” All throughout the story, Greer often reacts to new information in one of two ways:
    1. How someone reacts when they’re trying to act like they’re clueless.
    2. How someone reacts when they’re trying not to let on how absolutely beyond lost they are. 
For example:
  • Before Greer realizes there’s anything truly out of the ordinary going on with her, someone she hardly knows says to her: “We all felt the pulse of power you created. It opened a window for us, a surge of light in our darkened world.” To which her response is: “What is happening to me?” Which is a valid question… but one posed too soon. Her first question should’ve been something along the lines of, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” And if not that, “With all due respect, what the fuck?”
  • The next day, Greer is approached by a stranger who begins dumping similarly cryptic comments and accusations on her. Her (bizarre) response? “You don’t know anything.” Not, “What kind of drugs are you on and where can I get some?” Not, “Who the fuck are you and why are you following me to my apartment?” But, “You don’t know anything.”
  • Greer is adopted. Kinda. It’s a whole thing. She first contemplates the possibility after the aforementioned stranger encourages her to look into the murder of a former Montana resident, a woman named Holly Hawkins. For… some reason… the local university has physical copies of all the relevant case files, and among them, Greer comes across a photograph of a nursery. Above the crib, a name is displayed—her name. While this does seem to unsettle her, it’s not until she learns that the child had brown hair and gray eyes—same as her own hair and eyes—that it seems to occur to her that she’s looking at her own missing persons' report. Because apparently the name wasn’t a big enough give away??
  • Later, Greer comes to suspect that her adoptive mother, “Celeste,” may have been involved in her birth mother’s death, and subsequently, her own abduction. Conveniently, there’s a spell for tracking down murderers, and it works by pinpointing the culprit's location on a map. When Greer performs this spell—with little difficulty, might I add, bc she’s special like that—the spell indicates that the perp is in town. And suspiciously near to the hotel that Greer checked Celeste into, at that. You’d think that Greer would be half-convinced of Celeste’s guilt by this point, but no. They actually have to Google establishments in the area before Greer is like “Hey, wait. My mom is staying there.” Yeah. No shit, Sherlock.
(Etcetera. Etcetera.)
  • Know how much detail is too much detail. Be concise. This is a big one for As the Fallen Rise, especially during emotionally charged or tense scenes. Greer will be experiencing something life-changing one sentence, and then in the next, she’s putting sunglasses on because there’s a glare or inhaling the smell of chlorine as she passes an empty hotel pool. She’s not in shock, so why are we wasting word count on these details, and why are we doing it right now?
(Speaking of excess detail…)
  • This is more of a PSA to all authors—please, stop caring so much about what your characters look like. A preoccupation with a character’s appearance manifests in obtrusive physical descriptions. In fact, I would advise against having any POV character provide descriptions (of themselves) unless absolutely unavoidable—such as in a first-person exclusive POV. If you must do it, use another character to draw attention to the similarities or differences between them, but even then, do it sparingly. No cheeky characterization dumps.
    • This tip also extends to outfit descriptions. Is it a special occasion, like attending a formal event? No? We don’t need to know what they’re wearing. Do the clothes offer us insight into the character’s identity/backstory, such as a superstitious grandmother always wearing something yellow for good luck? No? We don’t need to know what they’re wearing. Is the outfit functionally unique, such as a dress with pockets that later facilitates the introduction between two people who will become friends for life? No? We don’t need to know what they’re wearing. Does it serve to further the plot, such as an ill-fitting glass slipper falling off as the wearer flees from a royal ball after midnight? No? We don’t. Need to know. What they’re wearing :)
  • Spend more time developing romantic chemistry and tension. Cian—whose name I’m still not sure how to pronounce… See-an? Sigh-an?—and Greer have a few moments here and there, but they go from barely acquaintances to an almost couple that jokes about living together after one makeout session. Where was the banter? The will-they-won’t-they? The yearning? How am I supposed to feel invested in the state of their relationship when their dynamic is so threadbare? Instead of all the rambling filler, this is the substance that might’ve justified the page count.
  • Determine whether you want your characters to be a natural with their gifts, or not. Are they the type who intuitively knows how to wield their magic—enough so to bypass incantations on a whim and dispel spellwork with a snap of their fingers—after just a few days of practice? Or do they struggle to tap into their power unless emotionally incentivized? Or can they access it with ease, but can’t control it? You have to decide; you can’t have it all.
  • POV characters should have more than one or two chapters, unless those chapters are at the very beginning or the very end. Otherwise, you’re just self-reporting to the reader your inability to advance the narrative without spoon-feeding it to us.
  • If the climax of your story depends on your character willfully ignoring every sensible warning from her associates in favor of stupidity and misplaced confidence, you don’t have a story. Try again. I know it’s tempting to have your characters walk headfirst into conflict under the pretense of a mistake, but frankly, that's shitty storytelling and complete character assassination. Do better.

TLDR; I wasn’t a fan.
But, don’t fret—this experience wasn’t totally for naught. At least I learned something: there are actually five fear responses. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn… and blushing? Apparently?
I don’t even know anymore.
If nothing else, the prose has potential. I guess. Hewitt seems to struggle with a moderate case of dysnomia and occasionally forgets when and how to utilize the Oxford comma, and for some inexplicable reason, no one (who can read at a college level) came to her rescue. 
Assuming anyone even read this aside from ARC readers like myself, that is. 

Yikes. That was cold, even for me.
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