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A review by kateshaw
Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson
2.0
These characters are all dumb as hammers. Every single event in the book (except Katrina) leads directly from their various poor choices. There was no need, for instance, for DJ's mentor to hide from her that he was, in fact, her biological father and that she has lots of extra magical oomph from his bloodline as well as her mother's. There was simply no rational explanation for him to keep the elven staff from her when he had acquired it twenty years before in hopes that she could use it. If he had given it to her and taught her to use it, she wouldn't have spent 300-some pages sitting around wringing her hands wondering what she should doooooo.
DJ is not interesting enough or strong enough to anchor this book. Nor is her partner Alex, whom I couldn't stand from the very beginning and who never gave me any reason to like him. DJ likes him because he's hot, and hotness apparently means a guy can be as sexist, insulting, and controlling as he likes and it's okay. I almost gave up on the book when Alex finally admitted (after lying to DJ for days) that he was a shapeshifter and was staying in her house at night as the 'stray' dog she adopted. So: he lied to her, betrayed her trust completely, and did so because he didn't think she could take care of herself. And her reaction? She's embarrassed that she'd bared her heart to the stray dog, and now Alex knows she thinks he's hot because she told the dog and the dog was Alex. I would have thrown his ass out and tossed one of his grenades after him.
And then they play truth or dare. See 'dumb as hammers,' above.
I could (almost) forgive the stupid characters if the plot was good. But it's very, very slow, and nothing in the plot surprised me. Most of the book consists of DJ and Alex waiting around for someone to call and tell them what to do. Sometimes they argue, with Alex blustering and pulling the idiotic 'alpha male pack leader' card and DJ snarking immaturely. Oh, how I hated those two. There's very little action until the very end, about 35 pages of DJ trying to figure out how to use the staff she's had for, what, a month at that point? Long enough that anyone with half a brain should have realized it packs a wallop and maybe she should, you know, figure out how to use it. But not only is DJ not very bright, she's extremely passive. Bless her heart. No wonder she needs an alpha male to tell her what to do.
The biggest conflict in the book, actually, is DJ feeling torn between her attraction to the hot Alex and Alex's equally hot cousin Jake. I did not care. I did not care about DJ, her attractions, or either of the hot cousins. I did not care about anything in this book except the one single character that saved me from having to give the book a one-star rating: the ghost of the pirate Jean Lafitte.
Lafitte was awesome, he was nuanced, he was interesting, and he had an agenda that went beyond "this man is so hot, but so is this other man, how do I choose? I guess I'll sit here and feel sorry for myself for a while until another character comes to smack me around and Alex saves me again." I was so disappointed when Lafitte dropped from the plot after the first couple of chapters. He was such a great character that I had expected him to end up as DJ's unwilling partner. But then Alex showed up and shot Lafitte back to the Beyond, and the hotness games began and I got bored.
The only way I will read the sequel is if Lafitte kills Alex on the first page to get him out of the way. Maybe he can take out everyone else too and we can start this series over with a more interesting set of characters.
DJ is not interesting enough or strong enough to anchor this book. Nor is her partner Alex, whom I couldn't stand from the very beginning and who never gave me any reason to like him. DJ likes him because he's hot, and hotness apparently means a guy can be as sexist, insulting, and controlling as he likes and it's okay. I almost gave up on the book when Alex finally admitted (after lying to DJ for days) that he was a shapeshifter and was staying in her house at night as the 'stray' dog she adopted. So: he lied to her, betrayed her trust completely, and did so because he didn't think she could take care of herself. And her reaction? She's embarrassed that she'd bared her heart to the stray dog, and now Alex knows she thinks he's hot because she told the dog and the dog was Alex. I would have thrown his ass out and tossed one of his grenades after him.
And then they play truth or dare. See 'dumb as hammers,' above.
I could (almost) forgive the stupid characters if the plot was good. But it's very, very slow, and nothing in the plot surprised me. Most of the book consists of DJ and Alex waiting around for someone to call and tell them what to do. Sometimes they argue, with Alex blustering and pulling the idiotic 'alpha male pack leader' card and DJ snarking immaturely. Oh, how I hated those two. There's very little action until the very end, about 35 pages of DJ trying to figure out how to use the staff she's had for, what, a month at that point? Long enough that anyone with half a brain should have realized it packs a wallop and maybe she should, you know, figure out how to use it. But not only is DJ not very bright, she's extremely passive. Bless her heart. No wonder she needs an alpha male to tell her what to do.
The biggest conflict in the book, actually, is DJ feeling torn between her attraction to the hot Alex and Alex's equally hot cousin Jake. I did not care. I did not care about DJ, her attractions, or either of the hot cousins. I did not care about anything in this book except the one single character that saved me from having to give the book a one-star rating: the ghost of the pirate Jean Lafitte.
Lafitte was awesome, he was nuanced, he was interesting, and he had an agenda that went beyond "this man is so hot, but so is this other man, how do I choose? I guess I'll sit here and feel sorry for myself for a while until another character comes to smack me around and Alex saves me again." I was so disappointed when Lafitte dropped from the plot after the first couple of chapters. He was such a great character that I had expected him to end up as DJ's unwilling partner. But then Alex showed up and shot Lafitte back to the Beyond, and the hotness games began and I got bored.
The only way I will read the sequel is if Lafitte kills Alex on the first page to get him out of the way. Maybe he can take out everyone else too and we can start this series over with a more interesting set of characters.