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arthurborghese 's review for:
Cloaked in Shadow
by Ben Alderson
My criticisms of this book far outweigh whatever I found even remotely good about it. On an absolute base level, it's clear there wasn't a whole lot of editing that went into the final draft of Cloaked in Shadow. The wrong "your/you're" is often used, there are a variety of spelling errors, and a lot of repetitive adjective uses. All of these impact readability.
The pacing is wretched. The most boring scenes are long, and the more interesting (as interesting as they get in this book, anyway) scenes race by. The ending rushes by far too quickly - way more happens in the last third of the book than in the first two thirds combined, but there's way less material.
The descriptions are bland. Characters, locations, history; I didn't get a good feel for anything that was described to me. The only thing I remember about Hadrian (the love interest) is that his eyes are gold. I know he's supposed to be handsome because the main character (first-person POV) describes him as such. Descriptions of unimportant things, however, like the texture of a loaf of bread or whether a character likes duck get their own dedicated paragraph.
One of the things that absolutely ruined this book for me was how boring every character is. There is absolutely no substance to any of them, and they all speak in the same voice. Alderson has clearly put very little time into writing strong characters, and it shows.
The only thing that saved Cloaked in Shadow for me was that I found myself thinking that the storyline would've been interesting if it had been written well. I'm a sucker for queer YA fantasy to begin with, so I totally expected this to be up my alley. As horrible as it sounds, I just kept wishing that a different (read: better) author had written this story.
I have the other two books in the Dragori series, and I'm not particularly optimistic about them. I hope they surprise me.
The pacing is wretched. The most boring scenes are long, and the more interesting (as interesting as they get in this book, anyway) scenes race by. The ending rushes by far too quickly - way more happens in the last third of the book than in the first two thirds combined, but there's way less material.
The descriptions are bland. Characters, locations, history; I didn't get a good feel for anything that was described to me. The only thing I remember about Hadrian (the love interest) is that his eyes are gold. I know he's supposed to be handsome because the main character (first-person POV) describes him as such. Descriptions of unimportant things, however, like the texture of a loaf of bread or whether a character likes duck get their own dedicated paragraph.
One of the things that absolutely ruined this book for me was how boring every character is. There is absolutely no substance to any of them, and they all speak in the same voice. Alderson has clearly put very little time into writing strong characters, and it shows.
Spoiler
The complete 180 of Petrer's character at the end of the novel makes absolutely no sense, even though his "justifications" for fucking Zacriah over are explained. They aren't consistent with his characterization and we haven't seen enough negative development for it to be believable.The only thing that saved Cloaked in Shadow for me was that I found myself thinking that the storyline would've been interesting if it had been written well. I'm a sucker for queer YA fantasy to begin with, so I totally expected this to be up my alley.
Spoiler
I love twists and betrayal plots, so if Hadrian's father's craziness had been written well it could have been really cool.I have the other two books in the Dragori series, and I'm not particularly optimistic about them. I hope they surprise me.