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weweresotired 's review for:
The Holders
by Julianna Scott
See the full review at Short & Sweet Reviews.
Here are some things that worked for me:
* The relationship between Alex and Becca. Alex is a nice, sweet, caring guy. No more of this Bad Boy nonsense, Alex is the guy you'd take home to mom and who all of your friends would coo over. If there's a "favorite book boyfriends" question in the Best of 2013 meme at the end of the year, you can bet Alex will most likely be on it. I like the fact that Becca doesn't go from zero to "I can't live without you" upon meeting him. She develops a perfectly normal crush on him, one she spends a lot of time trying to ignore. (Obviously, that doesn't work.) There are some other aspects of their relationship that I'd LOVE to talk about more but they're spoilers.
* Becca's anger at her father Jocelyn, and her over-protectiveness of her brother. It's interesting to watch how both of these things grow and change and mature over the course of the book.
* Becca is a great leading character -- she experiences conflict, she is passionate about things, she has opinions, and she's just starting to try to find herself now after she realizes that she doesn't have to live her life solely for her brother anymore. She's a bit of a tough nut to crack, as she's spent her whole life having to be strong for her brother and mother, so the times when she does allow herself to get close to someone, or express her real emotions, are pretty poignant.
Here are some things that didn't work for me:
* Almost everything is super predictable. I guessed two of the major plot points way before we ever got there in the book. Now, I'm not the most observant reader, I prefer to not try to guess at future developments while reading. So if I guess something quickly and early on, that means it's way obvious, which could be frustrating for readers who are pros at guessing plots.
* A lot of the characters are very one-note. There's the bubbly new best friend, the wise older woman, the funny/quirky bickering sidekick-types, the gruff and unreasonably angry guy, etc. Most of their personalities don't get fleshed out much more than that in this book - I was really hoping for something unexpected where the villain would be someone you didn't expect, but not so much.
* There is SO much telling rather than showing. SO MUCH. It's inevitable, in some ways, as Becca and Ryland are new to this whole universe of Holders so they need to have a lot explained to them, but I found the long info dumps to be the places where I wanted to start skimming, which is bad, because it's all info I probably need to know as a reader in the first place.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and will be checking out future books in the series. It is a mostly clean read, with some profanity, violence, and kissing scenes.
Here are some things that worked for me:
* The relationship between Alex and Becca. Alex is a nice, sweet, caring guy. No more of this Bad Boy nonsense, Alex is the guy you'd take home to mom and who all of your friends would coo over. If there's a "favorite book boyfriends" question in the Best of 2013 meme at the end of the year, you can bet Alex will most likely be on it. I like the fact that Becca doesn't go from zero to "I can't live without you" upon meeting him. She develops a perfectly normal crush on him, one she spends a lot of time trying to ignore. (Obviously, that doesn't work.) There are some other aspects of their relationship that I'd LOVE to talk about more but they're spoilers.
* Becca's anger at her father Jocelyn, and her over-protectiveness of her brother. It's interesting to watch how both of these things grow and change and mature over the course of the book.
* Becca is a great leading character -- she experiences conflict, she is passionate about things, she has opinions, and she's just starting to try to find herself now after she realizes that she doesn't have to live her life solely for her brother anymore. She's a bit of a tough nut to crack, as she's spent her whole life having to be strong for her brother and mother, so the times when she does allow herself to get close to someone, or express her real emotions, are pretty poignant.
Here are some things that didn't work for me:
* Almost everything is super predictable. I guessed two of the major plot points way before we ever got there in the book. Now, I'm not the most observant reader, I prefer to not try to guess at future developments while reading. So if I guess something quickly and early on, that means it's way obvious, which could be frustrating for readers who are pros at guessing plots.
* A lot of the characters are very one-note. There's the bubbly new best friend, the wise older woman, the funny/quirky bickering sidekick-types, the gruff and unreasonably angry guy, etc. Most of their personalities don't get fleshed out much more than that in this book - I was really hoping for something unexpected where the villain would be someone you didn't expect, but not so much.
* There is SO much telling rather than showing. SO MUCH. It's inevitable, in some ways, as Becca and Ryland are new to this whole universe of Holders so they need to have a lot explained to them, but I found the long info dumps to be the places where I wanted to start skimming, which is bad, because it's all info I probably need to know as a reader in the first place.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and will be checking out future books in the series. It is a mostly clean read, with some profanity, violence, and kissing scenes.