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jcqb09 's review for:
Dark Companion
by Marta Acosta
Standalone novels that aren't realistic fiction usually aren't a good idea. Standalones are known to have a easily resolvable plot with a possibility of a moral or lesson of the story. Both of those elements are canceled out when unrealism is added. So I was wary of this book from the beginning. After reading a bit into it, and taking the above into consideration, I was glad this was a standalone. I don't think I would've been able to take more than 400 pages of this story.
[this entire "review" is more of a criticism on this book sorry]
At first, I thought the author just wanted an interesting romance plot, not caring if the actual storyline's quality was sacrificed. For example:
The Writing:
As he took out a flashlight, his arm grazed mine, sending that reaction through me, so potent that it threw me back into a cool, shady place that I could almost remember like one might remember the coolness of a drink of water, but not be able to recall the taste. I froze and thought, What was that?
I don't know Jane, what was that? Not only was this sentence abnormally long (taking up the entire paragraph), but not being able to recall the taste of water?? IT'S WATER. The entire book was filled with things like this. Yeah, there were more than a few words that I had to look up, but that could have just been someone with mad thesaurus skills.
The Plot
I could easily tell where this book was going once Jane got to Birch Grove. The whole vampire thing was almost outright told to you, with no subtlety whatsoever. Besides that, this book was so filled with cliches, it was almost a satire on YA romantic novels: the mysterious academy, the mysterious close-knit town, the cult, the somewhat love triangle, the barely-added mystery, like STOP. PLEASE. Also, the "allegorical" scene in the classroom where they were talking about the book and it correlated with Jane's life could've been clever, but it was cliche like everything else.
The Characters
OHMYGOD I swear if I hear another "...is French for..." it will be too soon. The characters were a testament to the author's consistency; they were as low quality as everything else. I knew I wouldn't like Lucky (what a stupid nickname) from the start because Jane immediately started "lusting over" him. The whole "getting accepted into the popular clique even though she's a new student" thing was another cliche. The characters were so forced; all of their conversations were so robotic. "Question, answer, no transition, question" was the format for all of the dialogue interactions in this book. And of course there were some characters that were mentioned but never really had any relevance.
The Resolution
So the book basically ended with Jane finding out that there's some Lady of the Wood or something watching out for her, Jack loved her from their first meeting (wow! another cliche!), Lucky was actually in love with Hattie, and life is beautiful. How inspiring. There was that little bit about how she was an orphan and she did everything for herself and she had no prior advantages, but that was annulled by the fact that this was a fantasy book. You can't have a realistic moral to go with a completely unrealistic plot. At least not this one.
If you remember my statement from like four paragraphs ago, I said "at first I thought the romance aspect was quality", but of course that was at first. After Jane finds out that Jack loved her and she wasn't actually in love with Lucien, you just had to ride along with their various up-and-downs for about 70 pages until the book finally came to a stop. So that was wrecked along with the rest of the book.
Overall I would not recommend, sorry.
[this entire "review" is more of a criticism on this book sorry]
At first, I thought the author just wanted an interesting romance plot, not caring if the actual storyline's quality was sacrificed. For example:
The Writing:
As he took out a flashlight, his arm grazed mine, sending that reaction through me, so potent that it threw me back into a cool, shady place that I could almost remember like one might remember the coolness of a drink of water, but not be able to recall the taste. I froze and thought, What was that?
I don't know Jane, what was that? Not only was this sentence abnormally long (taking up the entire paragraph), but not being able to recall the taste of water?? IT'S WATER. The entire book was filled with things like this. Yeah, there were more than a few words that I had to look up, but that could have just been someone with mad thesaurus skills.
The Plot
I could easily tell where this book was going once Jane got to Birch Grove. The whole vampire thing was almost outright told to you, with no subtlety whatsoever. Besides that, this book was so filled with cliches, it was almost a satire on YA romantic novels: the mysterious academy, the mysterious close-knit town, the cult, the somewhat love triangle, the barely-added mystery, like STOP. PLEASE. Also, the "allegorical" scene in the classroom where they were talking about the book and it correlated with Jane's life could've been clever, but it was cliche like everything else.
The Characters
OHMYGOD I swear if I hear another "...is French for..." it will be too soon. The characters were a testament to the author's consistency; they were as low quality as everything else. I knew I wouldn't like Lucky (what a stupid nickname) from the start because Jane immediately started "lusting over" him. The whole "getting accepted into the popular clique even though she's a new student" thing was another cliche. The characters were so forced; all of their conversations were so robotic. "Question, answer, no transition, question" was the format for all of the dialogue interactions in this book. And of course there were some characters that were mentioned but never really had any relevance.
The Resolution
So the book basically ended with Jane finding out that there's some Lady of the Wood or something watching out for her, Jack loved her from their first meeting (wow! another cliche!), Lucky was actually in love with Hattie, and life is beautiful. How inspiring. There was that little bit about how she was an orphan and she did everything for herself and she had no prior advantages, but that was annulled by the fact that this was a fantasy book. You can't have a realistic moral to go with a completely unrealistic plot. At least not this one.
If you remember my statement from like four paragraphs ago, I said "at first I thought the romance aspect was quality", but of course that was at first. After Jane finds out that Jack loved her and she wasn't actually in love with Lucien, you just had to ride along with their various up-and-downs for about 70 pages until the book finally came to a stop. So that was wrecked along with the rest of the book.
Overall I would not recommend, sorry.