A review by writefromthepage
The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Had a lot of potential, ultimately it didn’t deliver. The pacing would jump from being dead slow for chapters at a time, speed up super quick for a few pages, and then return to the slow pace. It wasn’t done in a natural shift either It felt like right when action started happening, it was abruptly cut off. It was strange to say the least. And the writing felt very dry overall? Which made it really hard to get into the story and connect with the characters, especially Alter and Yakov. Alter felt like character traits rather than a developed character, and Yakov had barely any substance to him. The book never showed us how strong their friendship was, just told. Which really made me think why Alter cared so deeply about him. The one character exception though was Frankie. He was very interesting and developed. But also bizarre since he obviously had more time and care put into him than the main character himself. I will say the reveal of who’s been behind the murders is heartbreaking and handled well. The threat was very real. And when the book focused on the slow possession of Alter’s body, or his relationship with Frankie, was where the book really shined. There was good things in this book, but overall, pretty disappointing. 
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