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silvereyedathena 's review for:
Nocticadia
by Keri Lake
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I suspect that many of the 4-5-star reviews of this book are skewed by what I'll call Ramped-Up Ending Bias (TM), aka Plot Twist Blindness. Which is my own terminology for when the last chunk of a book is so fast-paced and hard-hitting, and/or the big twist reveals are so shocking, that you forget just how not-great the majority of the book is.
And, yeah, credit where credit's due, the last 20% of this book happens at a solid clip.
But the first half of this book is frustratingly slow and could have/should have been condensed down to at least half the length. As it is, by the time we hit 50%, our two leads have barely interacted, the male main character has shown zero likeability, and the female lead is doing that "I'm so shy and anxious that I become a painfully awkward klutz" thing.
I'm convinced the subplot where Lilia tries to earn extra money by filming herself is simply to shoehorn in at least one single sexy-time scene in the first 300 pages. While it doesn't exactly come out of nowhere, it also doesn't have much impact on the characters or plot and becomes pretty inconsequential.
It isn't until that 50% (maybe even 60%) mark that we start to see some chemistry between our romantic leads and get a few cracks in our antihero's stony exterior. Prior to that, there's a <i>lot</i> of Devryck being clinically detached from his own horrific actions toward a character who is actually portrayed pretty sympathetically (though that may be due to Aaron Shedlock's narration). Even though we spend time in Devryck's head recalling traumatic events that led him here, we don't get any emotions from him other than anger. We're made to feel more sympathetic for his bad-guy victim, which just makes Devryck look not so much "morally gray" as much as a full-on sadistic monster.
In fact, many of the characters' emotional responses to events seem off, or even non-existant. The pathetic bad-guy victim takes his whole situation as forced lab rat pretty goddamn well - he's more reluctantly fatalistic and nervous than outright horrified or desperate to escape.
[SPOILER]
<SPOILER>At some point near the end, Lilia refers to Devryck's human test subjects without a shred of horror or even shock (I feel like we didn't get to see her discover that's what he'd been up to. Did I miss it? I feel like I should remember it.). Which is absolutely crazy.
Hell, even Devryck almost goes through with inflicting his experiment on an innocent sex worker (at a point waaay too late in the story for this kind of character arc), which is a tremendous violation of his moral code of picking deserving victims. While we do see him waver, we don't see him decide to stop out of a sense of guilt or inner turmoil - it seems like the only thing that really stops him is that he happens to get an urgent phone call at a fortuitous time. He's so apparently unconcerned with his own decision making that we're left wondering if he isn't a monster after all.</Spoiler>
[END SPOILER]
The thing with the parasites evolving new physical traits goes absolutely nowhere. The thing with the mysterious metal button/ghostly happenings goes nowhere. And the lead-up to the big reveals at the end weren't exactly subtle.
Not to mention all of these serious scientific characters seem pretty goddamn blase about all these creepy, human-infecting black worms escaping down drains to water sources when we've <i>repeatedly</i> been told they head to water so they can *checks notes* breed. That is literally horror-movie fodder. But I guess neither we nor the characters are supposed to worry about the <i>human-infecting</i> parasite eggs getting into the water supply.
Despite all my gripes, I didn't hate the book. The spicy scenes - once we got them - were pretty hot. The campus setting was detailed and immersive, if a bit unbelievable for the real-world. And Lilia's character was well-drawn and felt real (but weird that she feels so at home at the college as a place where she "belongs" when we don't see her develop close relationships with anyone other than Devryck).
Overall, while there was stuff to like, it was my compulsive completionism that drove me to finish this book. That and the fact that the only way I could listen to the audiobook was to actually buy the damn thing. Based on the reviews, the description, and the algorithmic recommendation I felt pretty confident about adding it to my library - that'll teach me.
And, yeah, credit where credit's due, the last 20% of this book happens at a solid clip.
But the first half of this book is frustratingly slow and could have/should have been condensed down to at least half the length. As it is, by the time we hit 50%, our two leads have barely interacted, the male main character has shown zero likeability, and the female lead is doing that "I'm so shy and anxious that I become a painfully awkward klutz" thing.
I'm convinced the subplot where Lilia tries to earn extra money by filming herself is simply to shoehorn in at least one single sexy-time scene in the first 300 pages. While it doesn't exactly come out of nowhere, it also doesn't have much impact on the characters or plot and becomes pretty inconsequential.
It isn't until that 50% (maybe even 60%) mark that we start to see some chemistry between our romantic leads and get a few cracks in our antihero's stony exterior. Prior to that, there's a <i>lot</i> of Devryck being clinically detached from his own horrific actions toward a character who is actually portrayed pretty sympathetically (though that may be due to Aaron Shedlock's narration). Even though we spend time in Devryck's head recalling traumatic events that led him here, we don't get any emotions from him other than anger. We're made to feel more sympathetic for his bad-guy victim, which just makes Devryck look not so much "morally gray" as much as a full-on sadistic monster.
In fact, many of the characters' emotional responses to events seem off, or even non-existant. The pathetic bad-guy victim takes his whole situation as forced lab rat pretty goddamn well - he's more reluctantly fatalistic and nervous than outright horrified or desperate to escape.
[SPOILER]
<SPOILER>At some point near the end, Lilia refers to Devryck's human test subjects without a shred of horror or even shock (I feel like we didn't get to see her discover that's what he'd been up to. Did I miss it? I feel like I should remember it.). Which is absolutely crazy.
Hell, even Devryck almost goes through with inflicting his experiment on an innocent sex worker (at a point waaay too late in the story for this kind of character arc), which is a tremendous violation of his moral code of picking deserving victims. While we do see him waver, we don't see him decide to stop out of a sense of guilt or inner turmoil - it seems like the only thing that really stops him is that he happens to get an urgent phone call at a fortuitous time. He's so apparently unconcerned with his own decision making that we're left wondering if he isn't a monster after all.</Spoiler>
[END SPOILER]
The thing with the parasites evolving new physical traits goes absolutely nowhere. The thing with the mysterious metal button/ghostly happenings goes nowhere. And the lead-up to the big reveals at the end weren't exactly subtle.
Not to mention all of these serious scientific characters seem pretty goddamn blase about all these creepy, human-infecting black worms escaping down drains to water sources when we've <i>repeatedly</i> been told they head to water so they can *checks notes* breed. That is literally horror-movie fodder. But I guess neither we nor the characters are supposed to worry about the <i>human-infecting</i> parasite eggs getting into the water supply.
Despite all my gripes, I didn't hate the book. The spicy scenes - once we got them - were pretty hot. The campus setting was detailed and immersive, if a bit unbelievable for the real-world. And Lilia's character was well-drawn and felt real (but weird that she feels so at home at the college as a place where she "belongs" when we don't see her develop close relationships with anyone other than Devryck).
Overall, while there was stuff to like, it was my compulsive completionism that drove me to finish this book. That and the fact that the only way I could listen to the audiobook was to actually buy the damn thing. Based on the reviews, the description, and the algorithmic recommendation I felt pretty confident about adding it to my library - that'll teach me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Gore, Sexual content, Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Colonisation