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A review by izmadi
Hidden by Rebecca Zanetti
1.0
I was going to give it an extra star for having an attempt at a "mystery" subplot (the "at least you tried" star), but took it back at:
- The overly cheesy ending (to top the entire "masterpiece" with)
- Ending without revealing almost anything about the surgeon (another potentially interesting subplot with which we'd been teased early on*).
The rest of the stars were taken away for reasons which I'll illustrate below, to the best of my ability.
If you're on the fence on whether or not to read this book, let me sum it up for you:
1. Mystery woman meets mystery man. One evening, he spanks her and she immediately decides to tell him everything. (That's it. You can stop reading now. It doesn't get much more interesting than this neither after, nor before said spanking.)
2. She's presumably a virgin, but nasty AF. Even more conveniently, he's rough and tough and just next door from her. We're reminded in pretty much every chapter that they're both super hot. Even when it has no relevance whatsoever in the context of the given scene (another spoiler: the book is not purely erotic).
3. There's this guy called George. Nice guy. Naïve and loyal.
So George's sitting. After a brief exchange with another character, he "sits back down". After a couple more sentences, our George "settles down" AGAIN, so that we now have a total of three consecutive instances of George repeatedly sitting within the same scene, although there aren't any mentions of him standing up (in the entire book, for the record). Free tip: please get someone to proofread the draft before publishing. It can't be that expensive.
4. There's a t3rrorist subplot, some violence and some more sex, plus drugs, fanatism and implied sadism.
5. Cookies and wine make so many appearances that at this point it's like they have their own subplot, as well. I'm surprised they weren't even mentioned during the happy ending. What a waste.
If you still don't think it's that bad, read on. Either the book or my commentary.
Or both, it's your life.
The book tries so hard to incorporate mystery, erotica, humour and many other loose bits that make no sense and don't work together here, that I've found it "rocky" and disparate almost all throughout. It reads as if a small group of preteens were given a rush paper to turn in, splitting the work between them, then compiling their papers into one the next day (* perhaps the kid with the rest of the surgeon subplot shimmied his way by turning in his unfinished part). There are even a couple of instances where I lost track of who's who, though my guess is that the author mixed up Malcolm with Angus (since at least one of the fragments in question had been highlighted by other readers, as well). Free tip bis: please get someone to proofread the draft before publishing.
Perhaps if the book focused more in one direction (such as mystery, humour or erotica) and the rest of its subplots would have been toned way down to let the main plot breathe properly and be better built, it could have worked more for me. I can't say I found any of the "directions" well written, either. For instance, erotica in my opinion needs to be either a very heavy (and good!) or a very light (quick, unpretentious, shallow) read. This was none of them and it wasn't even pure erotica, but a combination of different styles and genres, as per above. And it wasn't "just a bit, to spice it up", either. It was trying to be its own plot/ subplot among many others.
I've read a lot of bad erotic fanfiction, but even that was more enjoyable than Hidden. I think that's for a couple of reasons: the fanfiction I've read was, as stated above, either very light (some works even humorous drabbles), or very deep and extremely well written (some amateurs can be incredible); or I was already shipping the characters from the original work and I just wanted to see them together. This is not the case with Mal and Pippa. After 300+ pages and the book done, they still feel like flat strangers, not only to me but to each other, as well. I can't sympathize with them at all, I don't want to "see" them naked, I don't care if they get together, who they end up with, how rough they like it, nor what happens to them in the next book(s). The only remotely endearing characters were the animals, with the dog having a more complex background and personality (albeit too ridiculous) than even these two main characters.
Lots of cringe all throughout, I didn't like how the narrative was built, found some of the wording questionable (don't make me go through it again to gauge examples) and some figures of speech were poorly timed, such as describing someone's appearance during a crime scene. I literally don't need to know how great her hair looks when she's running for her life or how soft her skin is while painting. At least give him a b0ner at the same time, so that we can pretend there's more context to it.
I'll later try reading the sample vampire story chapter, but given that Hidden was considered good enough to publish with all of the above flaws, I'm a bit skeptical that I'd enjoy other similar works, so no high hopes there.
- The overly cheesy ending (to top the entire "masterpiece" with)
- Ending without revealing almost anything about the surgeon (another potentially interesting subplot with which we'd been teased early on*).
The rest of the stars were taken away for reasons which I'll illustrate below, to the best of my ability.
If you're on the fence on whether or not to read this book, let me sum it up for you:
1. Mystery woman meets mystery man. One evening, he spanks her and she immediately decides to tell him everything. (That's it. You can stop reading now. It doesn't get much more interesting than this neither after, nor before said spanking.)
2. She's presumably a virgin, but nasty AF. Even more conveniently, he's rough and tough and just next door from her. We're reminded in pretty much every chapter that they're both super hot. Even when it has no relevance whatsoever in the context of the given scene (another spoiler: the book is not purely erotic).
3. There's this guy called George. Nice guy. Naïve and loyal.
So George's sitting. After a brief exchange with another character, he "sits back down". After a couple more sentences, our George "settles down" AGAIN, so that we now have a total of three consecutive instances of George repeatedly sitting within the same scene, although there aren't any mentions of him standing up (in the entire book, for the record). Free tip: please get someone to proofread the draft before publishing. It can't be that expensive.
4. There's a t3rrorist subplot, some violence and some more sex, plus drugs, fanatism and implied sadism.
5. Cookies and wine make so many appearances that at this point it's like they have their own subplot, as well. I'm surprised they weren't even mentioned during the happy ending. What a waste.
If you still don't think it's that bad, read on. Either the book or my commentary.
Or both, it's your life.
The book tries so hard to incorporate mystery, erotica, humour and many other loose bits that make no sense and don't work together here, that I've found it "rocky" and disparate almost all throughout. It reads as if a small group of preteens were given a rush paper to turn in, splitting the work between them, then compiling their papers into one the next day (* perhaps the kid with the rest of the surgeon subplot shimmied his way by turning in his unfinished part). There are even a couple of instances where I lost track of who's who, though my guess is that the author mixed up Malcolm with Angus (since at least one of the fragments in question had been highlighted by other readers, as well). Free tip bis: please get someone to proofread the draft before publishing.
Perhaps if the book focused more in one direction (such as mystery, humour or erotica) and the rest of its subplots would have been toned way down to let the main plot breathe properly and be better built, it could have worked more for me. I can't say I found any of the "directions" well written, either. For instance, erotica in my opinion needs to be either a very heavy (and good!) or a very light (quick, unpretentious, shallow) read. This was none of them and it wasn't even pure erotica, but a combination of different styles and genres, as per above. And it wasn't "just a bit, to spice it up", either. It was trying to be its own plot/ subplot among many others.
I've read a lot of bad erotic fanfiction, but even that was more enjoyable than Hidden. I think that's for a couple of reasons: the fanfiction I've read was, as stated above, either very light (some works even humorous drabbles), or very deep and extremely well written (some amateurs can be incredible); or I was already shipping the characters from the original work and I just wanted to see them together. This is not the case with Mal and Pippa. After 300+ pages and the book done, they still feel like flat strangers, not only to me but to each other, as well. I can't sympathize with them at all, I don't want to "see" them naked, I don't care if they get together, who they end up with, how rough they like it, nor what happens to them in the next book(s). The only remotely endearing characters were the animals, with the dog having a more complex background and personality (albeit too ridiculous) than even these two main characters.
Lots of cringe all throughout, I didn't like how the narrative was built, found some of the wording questionable (don't make me go through it again to gauge examples) and some figures of speech were poorly timed, such as describing someone's appearance during a crime scene. I literally don't need to know how great her hair looks when she's running for her life or how soft her skin is while painting. At least give him a b0ner at the same time, so that we can pretend there's more context to it.
I'll later try reading the sample vampire story chapter, but given that Hidden was considered good enough to publish with all of the above flaws, I'm a bit skeptical that I'd enjoy other similar works, so no high hopes there.