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A review by bedneyauthor
A Keeper's Destiny by C.A. King
1.0
I was given a free electronic copy of this book by the author, in accordance with the terms of For Love of a Book's Advance Reader Opportunity Program.
Unfortunately.
Because if I hadn't felt morally obliged to finish and review this book, I would have stopped after the first chapter, put it back on the (metaphorical) shelf, and never spoken of it again. Even if I'd struggled through from sheer pig-headedness, even past Chapter 8, which is nothing but a list of the ways in which our main character is special, I could not have made it past Chapter 16, in which she goes from merely slightly annoying to very annoying and the plot we were supposed to be getting vanishes utterly.
This was probably the worst overall reading experience I've ever had.
I picked this up because the blurb looked interesting. Unfortunately, the first part of the book consists almost entirely of Willow, our heroine, going about her normal everyday life, never really questioning the weird things that happen around her or really doing anything to better her situation. But that's OK, the rest of the people in her world are just as boring. The only exceptions are the members of the Council, who are introduced in great detail despite the fact that the vast majority of them are never seen again after their first appearence.
The Council is set up as the main antagonist, but they only ever do one thing to back up the fact that they seem to be treated as an opressive government. This makes them really unimpressive villains; the sole conflict Willow has for the first several chapters is that she gets asked to a dance and then stood up because a blonde mean girl seduced her date. That's despite the fact that one of her oldest friends is arrested - a fact that she forgets for most of the rest of the first half of the book.
I specify the first half of the book because about halfway through we suddenly drop what we seemed to be setting up about the people rallying behind Willow against the Council and suddenly we were introduced to a new and completely different set of villains, who destroyed Willow's world and sent her and her friends headlong into - I think - our world, where they meet some people who I think may be part of the military? It's completely unclear what's going on, except that Willow is throwing sass at everyone despite having a gun pointed at her face.
Willow is an idiot; there's no other way to say it. And yet for some reason everybody listens to her and loves her and lets her do whatever she likes and tells everyone how wonderful she is. It's deeply, deeply annoying.
By the way, this is a problem across the board; the secondary characters almost all worship Willow and are almost all completely interchangeable. I gave up telling the difference between them early on, and it just added insult to injury when the book kept throwing plot-convenient powers at them.
Now, we have a number of serious editing problems in this book, and the disconnect in the middle is one of them. I suspect King had a break halfway through writing and didn't read back what she'd already written; there are multiple places where she re-explains things that had already been established. It's a mess.
As a final structure point, the ending. Now, I don't mind cliffhangers in the middle of series, and I'm sure that was what this was supposed to be, but it wasn't. The book just stops. There is no arc coming to a loose thread, the story (such as it is; the structure is really poor, so there's no real plot arc and not even a climax) is just going along, assuring us of how Willow is special while showing us Willow caring more about whether a hot guy likes her than the fact that she's just seen evidence that innocent people are being horribly tortured, and then it just stops.
In short (I may edit to write something longer when I have more time), the craft was terrible, the characters were flat and at best boring, and the worldbuilding and plot made no sense at all.
Unfortunately.
Because if I hadn't felt morally obliged to finish and review this book, I would have stopped after the first chapter, put it back on the (metaphorical) shelf, and never spoken of it again. Even if I'd struggled through from sheer pig-headedness, even past Chapter 8, which is nothing but a list of the ways in which our main character is special, I could not have made it past Chapter 16, in which she goes from merely slightly annoying to very annoying and the plot we were supposed to be getting vanishes utterly.
This was probably the worst overall reading experience I've ever had.
I picked this up because the blurb looked interesting. Unfortunately, the first part of the book consists almost entirely of Willow, our heroine, going about her normal everyday life, never really questioning the weird things that happen around her or really doing anything to better her situation. But that's OK, the rest of the people in her world are just as boring. The only exceptions are the members of the Council, who are introduced in great detail despite the fact that the vast majority of them are never seen again after their first appearence.
The Council is set up as the main antagonist, but they only ever do one thing to back up the fact that they seem to be treated as an opressive government. This makes them really unimpressive villains; the sole conflict Willow has for the first several chapters is that she gets asked to a dance and then stood up because a blonde mean girl seduced her date. That's despite the fact that one of her oldest friends is arrested - a fact that she forgets for most of the rest of the first half of the book.
I specify the first half of the book because about halfway through we suddenly drop what we seemed to be setting up about the people rallying behind Willow against the Council and suddenly we were introduced to a new and completely different set of villains, who destroyed Willow's world and sent her and her friends headlong into - I think - our world, where they meet some people who I think may be part of the military? It's completely unclear what's going on, except that Willow is throwing sass at everyone despite having a gun pointed at her face.
Willow is an idiot; there's no other way to say it. And yet for some reason everybody listens to her and loves her and lets her do whatever she likes and tells everyone how wonderful she is. It's deeply, deeply annoying.
By the way, this is a problem across the board; the secondary characters almost all worship Willow and are almost all completely interchangeable. I gave up telling the difference between them early on, and it just added insult to injury when the book kept throwing plot-convenient powers at them.
Now, we have a number of serious editing problems in this book, and the disconnect in the middle is one of them. I suspect King had a break halfway through writing and didn't read back what she'd already written; there are multiple places where she re-explains things that had already been established. It's a mess.
As a final structure point, the ending. Now, I don't mind cliffhangers in the middle of series, and I'm sure that was what this was supposed to be, but it wasn't. The book just stops. There is no arc coming to a loose thread, the story (such as it is; the structure is really poor, so there's no real plot arc and not even a climax) is just going along, assuring us of how Willow is special while showing us Willow caring more about whether a hot guy likes her than the fact that she's just seen evidence that innocent people are being horribly tortured, and then it just stops.
In short (I may edit to write something longer when I have more time), the craft was terrible, the characters were flat and at best boring, and the worldbuilding and plot made no sense at all.