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A review by despinareviews
Rose Petal Graves by Olivia Wildenstein
2.0
This book is about Catori, a young medical school student who returns to her home town after her mother dies. She suspects foul play and wants to find out more about what happened to her mother.
I read the entire thing, but many times considered DNF'ing this. I don't normally continue but I wanted to check whether it got better given I knew this was part of a larger series. There are honestly so many things I disliked about this, but to briefly summarise:
Catori made no sense to me. She is 19 and a medical student, who acts like a 16 year old but speaks of her life experience as though she's 25. I don't think her personality came across very likeable, and I found myself more annoyed by her and her actions. A lot of characters make really stupid decisions which don't seem justified, and I felt myself wanting to slap sense into them. Also the love interest (s) made literally ZERO sense to me in terms of chemistry.
The book revolved a LOT around death, grief, loss. I *know* the word grave is in the title, but I didn't feel like the book was so fully going to revolve around the topic. It felt dark and not in a good way. The story around the Native American side of her family felt really forced, and as it was a main plotline I felt didn't help that nothing felt explained about WHY certain plot points happened. Because I listened to this in audiobook format, a lot of the terminology that was thrown around I didn't feel was adequately explained which led to some very confusing bits around the half way mark (ish!).
Finally, and very mean of me to say, but the writing reminded me of a fanfiction from 2015 when Wattpad was all the rage. Word usage bothered me and the way it was constructed really gave me that vibe. I can't explain it any better I'm afraid - I think the fact it was first person narration and we were hearing her thoughts was actually part of why I ended up disliking the MC.
Not my favourite, though I have to say the narrator did a good job (especially with all the terminology) and I feel bad leaving this review because she really did a decent job with portraying the different characters.
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this audiobook by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, which I leave voluntarily
I read the entire thing, but many times considered DNF'ing this. I don't normally continue but I wanted to check whether it got better given I knew this was part of a larger series. There are honestly so many things I disliked about this, but to briefly summarise:
Catori made no sense to me. She is 19 and a medical student, who acts like a 16 year old but speaks of her life experience as though she's 25. I don't think her personality came across very likeable, and I found myself more annoyed by her and her actions. A lot of characters make really stupid decisions which don't seem justified, and I felt myself wanting to slap sense into them. Also the love interest (s) made literally ZERO sense to me in terms of chemistry.
The book revolved a LOT around death, grief, loss. I *know* the word grave is in the title, but I didn't feel like the book was so fully going to revolve around the topic. It felt dark and not in a good way. The story around the Native American side of her family felt really forced, and as it was a main plotline I felt didn't help that nothing felt explained about WHY certain plot points happened. Because I listened to this in audiobook format, a lot of the terminology that was thrown around I didn't feel was adequately explained which led to some very confusing bits around the half way mark (ish!).
Finally, and very mean of me to say, but the writing reminded me of a fanfiction from 2015 when Wattpad was all the rage. Word usage bothered me and the way it was constructed really gave me that vibe. I can't explain it any better I'm afraid - I think the fact it was first person narration and we were hearing her thoughts was actually part of why I ended up disliking the MC.
Not my favourite, though I have to say the narrator did a good job (especially with all the terminology) and I feel bad leaving this review because she really did a decent job with portraying the different characters.
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this audiobook by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, which I leave voluntarily