readitandreview 's review for:

The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton

3.0

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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The World Cannot Give is one of those novels that sounds so perfect yet somehow misses the mark. Dark academia, a pretentious private school, and obsession—now that’s a recipe for a great novel so I’m not sure where we went wrong. I wish there was more of an atmospheric quality to the book as we have the dark academia setting but we are missing the descriptive language to really paint the picture. A novel that takes place in a similar setting that did a great job at this was Catherine House, which I absolutely loved. However, there were aspects of this read that I think were well done. The obsession that our main character has for her peer Virginia and their suppressed sexuality combined with religious ideologies was one of the more interesting elements of the novel. It definitely gave me Black Swan (the movie) vibes. I do wish that our protagonist Laura had more character development as there are times where I thought she was going to break out of her shell and rebel against Virginia (or be driven to madness)but she remains fairly meek for the duration of the novel. This novel is very slow paced and to be honest not a whole lot happens for 90% of the story. However, the ending was so shocking that it single handedly redeemed the otherwise fairly dull storyline. I think it’s worth the read but it will not be making it into my top dark academia reads.