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A review by melbsreads
Sere from the Green by Lauren Jankowski
3.0
Do you ever finish reading a book and just find yourself staring blankly into space thinking "what the eff did I just read?"?? If you have, you'll very much understand my experience of reading this book.
I picked this one up because it was on a list of ace spectrum Own Voices books, and HELL YES. Also, the blurb sounds pretty stinking great. But honestly? I think the best word to describe this book is "disjointed".
Like, yes, it starts out being a story about an ordinary girl taking photos of a murder that subsequently vanishes without a trace, and her being all "Um. WHUT". But it rapidly turns into "Guess what? You've got paranormal abilities! And you have a twin sister! And you need to learn to use your powers immediately because of reasons! And also your father was a pretty bad dude! Who may or may not be dead! And also now there are more vanishing murders! But we can't really do anything about those, so go break into this museum and steal a CD instead! Also, there's this mysterious guy following you but don't worry about him! Instead, worry about the assassin who's after you!"
Like. There was a LOT going on. And it didn't seem to happen in any particularly logical order? Especially because there were SO MANY CHARACTERS and it jumped between them constantly.
And perhaps disappointingly, while there are very VERY strong hints that Isis is aro/ace (just like the author!!), it was never explicitly stated. She just did a lot of "nope, not interested" and "I don't really like people"-ing.
So...I liked the premise. I liked a bunch of the characters. But there were too many perspectives and it jumped around FAR too much. End result? Confusion. Sigh.
I picked this one up because it was on a list of ace spectrum Own Voices books, and HELL YES. Also, the blurb sounds pretty stinking great. But honestly? I think the best word to describe this book is "disjointed".
Like, yes, it starts out being a story about an ordinary girl taking photos of a murder that subsequently vanishes without a trace, and her being all "Um. WHUT". But it rapidly turns into "Guess what? You've got paranormal abilities! And you have a twin sister! And you need to learn to use your powers immediately because of reasons! And also your father was a pretty bad dude! Who may or may not be dead! And also now there are more vanishing murders! But we can't really do anything about those, so go break into this museum and steal a CD instead! Also, there's this mysterious guy following you but don't worry about him! Instead, worry about the assassin who's after you!"
Like. There was a LOT going on. And it didn't seem to happen in any particularly logical order? Especially because there were SO MANY CHARACTERS and it jumped between them constantly.
And perhaps disappointingly, while there are very VERY strong hints that Isis is aro/ace (just like the author!!), it was never explicitly stated. She just did a lot of "nope, not interested" and "I don't really like people"-ing.
So...I liked the premise. I liked a bunch of the characters. But there were too many perspectives and it jumped around FAR too much. End result? Confusion. Sigh.