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This review and others like it can originally be found on my blog, Hey, Tara.
Firstly, I am totally in love with the cover of this one – I’m a complete sucker for the current trend of pretty dresses on book covers. Obviously, there’s also been a lot of hype around this book lately, and that’s usually a good sign, and so I had to buy it.
Firstly, I’ll start with the parts of this book that really worked for me. Firstly, it was the way the book was written. The prose flowed well, and it made the book enjoyable and easy to continue reading throughout. Also, in the same sort of way, the book really manages to tackle some emotional topics, and do it well, without getting too overemotional or skimming the details. For example, there’s everything in here from young love, to heartbreak, to the death of Nikki’s mother and back again, and I felt that each part was tackled well. The stand-out scene for me in terms of emotions has to be when Nikki hears her Dad talking to her Mother – it was one of those bittersweet book moments.
I also loved Jack – typical knight in shining armor type adoration here, but there you have it. For me, he was a much better written character than I felt Cole was, and I liked the way he gravitated towards Nikki. I also like how they had enough backstory that there was definitely no chance of instalove, which as some of you know, I don’t particularly enjoy.
I also liked the ways that the author tried to tie different mythologies together – for example, the links to both the Greek and Egyptian legends about the underworld, and recognizing the similarities between the stories within them. I think it was a fairly ambitious thing to do to try and mix them both up, and manage to pull off a modern day retelling to boot, but clearly the subject was well-researched, and it pretty much worked.
So far this sounds like a very good review, and I expect some people will have noticed that whilst I’ve been positive, this one didn’t get a five star rating, but a firm four.
There are a few reasons for that. One was the pacing of the book. At some points time seemed to be moving along slowly, with several parts of the story told in the same week, or same month, and at other times it jumped ahead, skipping large parts of time. I mean, I understand that that was to keep the story moving along at a good pace, and not make it ridiculously long, but I sometimes felt a little like I’d missed large parts myself, because they just weren’t there.
Also, there was no description, really, given to her Dad and brother about where she’d actually been. I know for a fact that my mother would have gone mad, and asked at least a thousand questions – it just felt like a bit of a hole to me, but I think I’m the only one with this niggle!
Similarly, there wasn’t enough depth for me given on how the Queen works, or how the Feed works. I mean, I understand that this is going to be part of a series, so it’ll probably come up later, but still.
That all said, overall I enjoyed this book, there were just a couple of things that stopped it getting the top rating. However, overall this was a very good debut, and I’d recommend it to both people who like contemporary fiction and those who enjoy paranormal books.
Firstly, I am totally in love with the cover of this one – I’m a complete sucker for the current trend of pretty dresses on book covers. Obviously, there’s also been a lot of hype around this book lately, and that’s usually a good sign, and so I had to buy it.
Firstly, I’ll start with the parts of this book that really worked for me. Firstly, it was the way the book was written. The prose flowed well, and it made the book enjoyable and easy to continue reading throughout. Also, in the same sort of way, the book really manages to tackle some emotional topics, and do it well, without getting too overemotional or skimming the details. For example, there’s everything in here from young love, to heartbreak, to the death of Nikki’s mother and back again, and I felt that each part was tackled well. The stand-out scene for me in terms of emotions has to be when Nikki hears her Dad talking to her Mother – it was one of those bittersweet book moments.
I also loved Jack – typical knight in shining armor type adoration here, but there you have it. For me, he was a much better written character than I felt Cole was, and I liked the way he gravitated towards Nikki. I also like how they had enough backstory that there was definitely no chance of instalove, which as some of you know, I don’t particularly enjoy.
I also liked the ways that the author tried to tie different mythologies together – for example, the links to both the Greek and Egyptian legends about the underworld, and recognizing the similarities between the stories within them. I think it was a fairly ambitious thing to do to try and mix them both up, and manage to pull off a modern day retelling to boot, but clearly the subject was well-researched, and it pretty much worked.
So far this sounds like a very good review, and I expect some people will have noticed that whilst I’ve been positive, this one didn’t get a five star rating, but a firm four.
There are a few reasons for that. One was the pacing of the book. At some points time seemed to be moving along slowly, with several parts of the story told in the same week, or same month, and at other times it jumped ahead, skipping large parts of time. I mean, I understand that that was to keep the story moving along at a good pace, and not make it ridiculously long, but I sometimes felt a little like I’d missed large parts myself, because they just weren’t there.
Also, there was no description, really, given to her Dad and brother about where she’d actually been. I know for a fact that my mother would have gone mad, and asked at least a thousand questions – it just felt like a bit of a hole to me, but I think I’m the only one with this niggle!
Similarly, there wasn’t enough depth for me given on how the Queen works, or how the Feed works. I mean, I understand that this is going to be part of a series, so it’ll probably come up later, but still.
That all said, overall I enjoyed this book, there were just a couple of things that stopped it getting the top rating. However, overall this was a very good debut, and I’d recommend it to both people who like contemporary fiction and those who enjoy paranormal books.