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A review by paradoxically
Seven Kinds of Hell by Dana Cameron
1.0
This book started off promising and then just degenerated. It was like watching a train wreck, only this was slower and made me angry. Especially the end, oh man, that end. There was no satisfaction to it, it was more senseless than anything else, a confused jumbled mess that irritated me.
And that's pretty much the refrain for the second half of the book. A confused jumbled mess. You get characters jumping at you, you have the main character running off from everyone and everything, and you have events that happen at breakneck speed that don't make much sense. Seven Kinds of Hell just left me feeling cold and unhappy, like I wasted my time reading the book when there were other things I would much rather do.
You have a dozen characters that all seem to blend into one another. Zoe is distinguishable, if only because she's the main character, and it's actually fine for the first half or so, where you kind of nod along and get used to what you're reading. Then Zoe's cousin, Danny, get kidnapped and it's a clusterfuck from there. Things happen, you get no information and then you get info dumps, and there's no sense of proper pacing in what you're reading. I had been starting to be tentatively attached to both Zoe and Sean, but then it's blown away in the wind.
And, massive, massive spoilers for the end of the book:
And then, after all that to-do, there's the last few pages of the book. It was like the ending of a horror movie, where the heroine is safe and happy, but then there's the credits. And right after the credits, something happens that completely screws things up again. Like a zombie hand sticking up from the ground. Just. Ugh. It could have been handled so much better, and what was crunched into a few pages should have been given more time to develop--or at least summarized better, because that's what the last few pages were, essentially. A summary.
So all in all, the first half of the book was okay, not the best, but not the worst. Then it just plummets downhill from there, and the ending made me want to tear my hair out. 1-2 stars, rounding down to 1 because I can't believe that ending. There is just something so disappointing about a book ending that poorly.
And that's pretty much the refrain for the second half of the book. A confused jumbled mess. You get characters jumping at you, you have the main character running off from everyone and everything, and you have events that happen at breakneck speed that don't make much sense. Seven Kinds of Hell just left me feeling cold and unhappy, like I wasted my time reading the book when there were other things I would much rather do.
You have a dozen characters that all seem to blend into one another. Zoe is distinguishable, if only because she's the main character, and it's actually fine for the first half or so, where you kind of nod along and get used to what you're reading. Then Zoe's cousin, Danny, get kidnapped and it's a clusterfuck from there. Things happen, you get no information and then you get info dumps, and there's no sense of proper pacing in what you're reading. I had been starting to be tentatively attached to both Zoe and Sean, but then it's blown away in the wind.
And, massive, massive spoilers for the end of the book:
Spoiler
Sean dies and what's the reaction? Some vaguely token words of unhappiness, but of course Zoe and Will get back together and that takes up more page space than Sean's death. Not that the two seem unhappy about that. You'd think they'd be more upset that their friend, Will's best friend, had been mind controlled (or what amounts to it, anyway) against his will and then died during the course of their little adventure. But no.And then, after all that to-do, there's the last few pages of the book. It was like the ending of a horror movie, where the heroine is safe and happy, but then there's the credits. And right after the credits, something happens that completely screws things up again. Like a zombie hand sticking up from the ground. Just. Ugh. It could have been handled so much better, and what was crunched into a few pages should have been given more time to develop--or at least summarized better, because that's what the last few pages were, essentially. A summary.
So all in all, the first half of the book was okay, not the best, but not the worst. Then it just plummets downhill from there, and the ending made me want to tear my hair out. 1-2 stars, rounding down to 1 because I can't believe that ending. There is just something so disappointing about a book ending that poorly.