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A review by bean
Evergreen by Devin Greenlee
2.5
Thank you senior NetGalley for this arc. I always appreciate it.
I read this because it was pitched as a The Secret Garden reimagining. I love The Secret Garden. It has a special place in my heart as one of my childhood favorites. And sure, let's make it a fantasy. And sure, let's make it gay. These are all things that I enjoy and would enjoy reading together.
Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed this all too much.
It's just amateurishly written. The world and magic do not feel very thought out or fleshed out. Merely following the plot requires an absurd amount of suspension of disbelief, and I only have so much disbelief to suspend. All the things that would drive me to a book with this kind of hook --fantasy secret garden retelling-- were all woefully undercooked. The gay bit? There was nothing particularly memorable about the romance. The pairing wasn't bad, it wasn't like I was rooting against them or anything, but they did not endear me enough to keep reading. I'm sure if I was a gay teenager I would feel differently, but judging by the quality of the book, this is the sort of young adult novel that cannot appeal outside of its age range. Which is fine. I guess. To a certain degree. I really do wish it was written better, though.
If anything, it's a very quick read and easy to consume. Thematically it means very little. Many different ideas are raised throughout the story but they do not connect very much and some big things that definitely would require introspection are raised and never given that much needed introspection. It almost read like a first draft that had only been subjected to line edits. It needed a lot of developmental work.
I really really really wanted this to be better. But alas.
I read this because it was pitched as a The Secret Garden reimagining. I love The Secret Garden. It has a special place in my heart as one of my childhood favorites. And sure, let's make it a fantasy. And sure, let's make it gay. These are all things that I enjoy and would enjoy reading together.
Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed this all too much.
It's just amateurishly written. The world and magic do not feel very thought out or fleshed out. Merely following the plot requires an absurd amount of suspension of disbelief, and I only have so much disbelief to suspend. All the things that would drive me to a book with this kind of hook --fantasy secret garden retelling-- were all woefully undercooked. The gay bit? There was nothing particularly memorable about the romance. The pairing wasn't bad, it wasn't like I was rooting against them or anything, but they did not endear me enough to keep reading. I'm sure if I was a gay teenager I would feel differently, but judging by the quality of the book, this is the sort of young adult novel that cannot appeal outside of its age range. Which is fine. I guess. To a certain degree. I really do wish it was written better, though.
If anything, it's a very quick read and easy to consume. Thematically it means very little. Many different ideas are raised throughout the story but they do not connect very much and some big things that definitely would require introspection are raised and never given that much needed introspection. It almost read like a first draft that had only been subjected to line edits. It needed a lot of developmental work.
I really really really wanted this to be better. But alas.