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A review by llim
Updraft by Fran Wilde
1.0
That was a lot less fun than it should have been...
The premise was so cool--a city in the sky, towers made out of bone, people who fly around with wings strapped to their backs, giant tentacle monsters... it would take spectacular skill to fail with all of these elements, yet Fran Wilde managed to do it.
The characters were awful. The main girl made mistake after mistake, and they weren't even justifiable mistakes--she made them because she's an idiot, that's all. "Even though breaking the law is a serious offence in this world, I'm going to do it anyway just because". Really? Her motivations for doing things seemed simply to be "because the plot calls for it". The entire inciting incident (her going out on the balcony when those tentacle monsters were attacking) was completely out of character (or rather, it should have been. No one in this world would do that for no reason, yet the main character did. And then she seemed surprised by the outcome, like she hadn't expected to get in trouble for it). And why did she follow Nat out for their nightflying thing? That was clearly a serious crime, and again--after she was caught--she seemed so surprised by the reprimand...
Also, fucking Nat. He died and came back to life TWICE. I hate that. If you're going to kill a character, they'd better stay dead. "Oh, he miraculously survived". Fuck that.
And the skymouths...ok, they are flying tentacle monsters, but how exactly are they flying...? And since when do they have camouflage skin...? and how exactly did this breeding program produce super scary monsters out of tiny cute things in such a short time?
*sigh*
I really wanted to like this book, because the cover for the sequel looked cool. But man, it was awful. I hate YA garbage.
The premise was so cool--a city in the sky, towers made out of bone, people who fly around with wings strapped to their backs, giant tentacle monsters... it would take spectacular skill to fail with all of these elements, yet Fran Wilde managed to do it.
The characters were awful. The main girl made mistake after mistake, and they weren't even justifiable mistakes--she made them because she's an idiot, that's all. "Even though breaking the law is a serious offence in this world, I'm going to do it anyway just because". Really? Her motivations for doing things seemed simply to be "because the plot calls for it". The entire inciting incident (her going out on the balcony when those tentacle monsters were attacking) was completely out of character (or rather, it should have been. No one in this world would do that for no reason, yet the main character did. And then she seemed surprised by the outcome, like she hadn't expected to get in trouble for it). And why did she follow Nat out for their nightflying thing? That was clearly a serious crime, and again--after she was caught--she seemed so surprised by the reprimand...
Also, fucking Nat. He died and came back to life TWICE. I hate that. If you're going to kill a character, they'd better stay dead. "Oh, he miraculously survived". Fuck that.
And the skymouths...ok, they are flying tentacle monsters, but how exactly are they flying...? And since when do they have camouflage skin...? and how exactly did this breeding program produce super scary monsters out of tiny cute things in such a short time?
*sigh*
I really wanted to like this book, because the cover for the sequel looked cool. But man, it was awful. I hate YA garbage.