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A review by briarhoes
Under Lock & Skeleton Key by Gigi Pandian
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I love mysteries, specifically puzzle mysteries, and read every single one I come across. I've been obsessed with the genre since I was a kid, and I like to consider myself somewhat of an expert in it. I take great joy in collecting these kinds of books. That being said, though it was a fine read, I don't think I'll be adding this to my collection.
I found myself confused and surprised that the main character is apparently nearly thirty, as both her character and the writing itself seem young. The book reads as if it was intended for juvenile audiences, like a true YA book, but it's marked as adult. It has a tendency to overexplain things that you could easily draw a conclusion of, making the act of reading this more than a little tedious. When it isn't tedious, it's outright annoying - I very nearly shut the book and put it down for good when a character used "OMG" in spoken dialogue, and I really questioned my decision to keep going when they started talking about "stans" and "twitter haters". Writing like this is exactly why I DNF'd Dead Romantics, and I think I finished this more out of obligation than interest in the story.
To be honest, the mystery premise is misleading. For 200 out of 341 pages, no progress gets made at all on the mystery, with everyone instead circling around repeating "It's impossible" for 3/4ths of the book. The majority of this book is made up not of a story or plot, but assorted random fun facts about characters that are either irrelevant themselves, or that the facts are utterly irrelevant about. I'm all for building characters, but when you put your plot on hold for a hundred and fifty pages to detail for paragraphs and paragraphs the house that the characters stop in for one scene, or the detailed backstory of someone who's there to deliver one unimportant line and disappear, it gets grating. I actively avoiding picking this book back up to continue reading it because it dragged on so much. The only reason I'm forgiving the constant long descriptions of food is because the author included recipes at the end.
The climax of the book was uninteresting to me and though it was exciting for a second, I ultimately couldn't bring myself to care about the resolution of the mystery, because the mystery barely existed at all. The book mostly consisted of the main character - who was grating herself - walking around saying she was going to solve the family curse. I got tired of it after the exact same scene and dialogue started repeating for the third or fourth time. I don't know if they were trying to fill up space, or what, but it felt like a waste of time.
I don't think I'll read any of the author's other books, but I didn't hate this one. It just lost my interest because it didn't seem interested in holding onto it.
I found myself confused and surprised that the main character is apparently nearly thirty, as both her character and the writing itself seem young. The book reads as if it was intended for juvenile audiences, like a true YA book, but it's marked as adult. It has a tendency to overexplain things that you could easily draw a conclusion of, making the act of reading this more than a little tedious. When it isn't tedious, it's outright annoying - I very nearly shut the book and put it down for good when a character used "OMG" in spoken dialogue, and I really questioned my decision to keep going when they started talking about "stans" and "twitter haters". Writing like this is exactly why I DNF'd Dead Romantics, and I think I finished this more out of obligation than interest in the story.
To be honest, the mystery premise is misleading. For 200 out of 341 pages, no progress gets made at all on the mystery, with everyone instead circling around repeating "It's impossible" for 3/4ths of the book. The majority of this book is made up not of a story or plot, but assorted random fun facts about characters that are either irrelevant themselves, or that the facts are utterly irrelevant about. I'm all for building characters, but when you put your plot on hold for a hundred and fifty pages to detail for paragraphs and paragraphs the house that the characters stop in for one scene, or the detailed backstory of someone who's there to deliver one unimportant line and disappear, it gets grating. I actively avoiding picking this book back up to continue reading it because it dragged on so much. The only reason I'm forgiving the constant long descriptions of food is because the author included recipes at the end.
The climax of the book was uninteresting to me and though it was exciting for a second, I ultimately couldn't bring myself to care about the resolution of the mystery, because the mystery barely existed at all. The book mostly consisted of the main character - who was grating herself - walking around saying she was going to solve the family curse. I got tired of it after the exact same scene and dialogue started repeating for the third or fourth time. I don't know if they were trying to fill up space, or what, but it felt like a waste of time.
I don't think I'll read any of the author's other books, but I didn't hate this one. It just lost my interest because it didn't seem interested in holding onto it.