A review by betwixt_the_pages
Paradox: by Jamie Ripp, Jamie Ripp

2.0

Rating: 2.5/5 Penguins (rounded down)
Quick Reasons: not the read for me; confusing, hard to follow story; the main character is told hardly nothing about herself, therefore we know hardly nothing about her; hard to connect with characters; a lot of action scenes that don't really lead to anything


HUGE thanks to Jamie Ripp and Ink Street Press for the title! My review is voluntarily written and in no way altered or impacted by this gesture.

I'm going to be honest, Penguins. This was a HARD read for me to follow, personally. There was a lot of world- building info dumping happening at the very beginning, but somehow, I still didn't feel like I got any of the answers I was looking for. The writing style was done in the way of "readers will find out the answers when the MC(s) do(es)"...... except the MC literally never learns ANYTHING, despite asking multiple times. On top of that, the FMC had a nasty habit of just brushing things off as if they didn't matter when I was BEGGING her to stop and ask more questions. This made her seem like a shallow, "cookie cutter" character and made her very, very hard to connect with.

The story was also very hard to follow-- where we most needed answers, we were given action scenes. And while these were in some ways entertaining.... they never really LED us anywhere except to more confusion. The dialogue also didn't work for me in a lot of ways. These characters often spoke like they were teenagers, instead of the adults they were written as. One of the MCs also broke into disjointed, "formal" early English.... but didn't keep it up consistently? He would go from saying "thee" and "thine" in one sentence, back to "you" and "I" the next.... it really just didn't work.

I will not personally be continuing with this series, but that doesn't mean that the read won't work for YOU! If you're into Vikings and vampires, a thirst for revenge, and action packed adventures, this might be the read for you!