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A review by mnreece
Waterfall by Lauren Kate
1.0
While Teardrop was meh for me, I still picked up Waterfall because my problems with Teardrop [cliffhanger, long wait time until action showed, an annoying main character, lack of growth, etc] should have been redeemed in the second book.
I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
This book was HORRIBLE. Absolutely horrible. And on many different levels!
While the writing style of the first wasn't amazing, it was ten times better than this. Lauren Kate needed to do some serious edits - no one needs a simile every other sentence, nor do we need pointless background about Eureka and Brooks [especially since it was a cheap plot point to make us feel like Eureka has loved Brooks forever]. Also, reading is no fun if the author breaks down every minute detail of imagery and symbolism. We would have gotten the symbolism behind Eureka's locket, thunderstone, and the little girl's ribbon ON OUR OWN. No need to bring it up every time it was used. And while the first book described the setting to a t, I had a hard time deciphering where the characters were at 90% of the time [other than everything was purple]. Last writing point and then I'm done - please vary your sentence structure and starters! It's not good when a publish author skips this point more times than my fourth grade students. It's like the only sentence starters she knew was "she" or "he." Makes for a very dull read.
Now, I can normally overlook bad writing if the story is interesting enough. Sometimes a good story will trump the occasional writing quirk. But this story was not it. It was a jumbled up hot mess with no clear plot points or reasoning. It's like the author had a lot of cool ideas, wanted to use ALL of them, but had no idea how to link them together. Suddenly we go from a very normal world in book one to a bizarre, magic filled one that had no idea of its own laws and boundaries in book two. And within the book, each chapter brought on a new onslaught of WTF. It just didn't go together at all. There was obviously no map guiding this writer.
If the plot wasn't bad enough as a whole, the supposed "romance" of the story was hugely disappointing. First, Eureka's madly, deeply in love with Ander, the stalker from book one. They cross the ocean together, defying the odds of the universe since they're destined to be the end of the other. Even though she knows it's wrong, Eureka can't help but to fall in to his arms every time they're near. Well . . . that is until the leopard headed Seedbarer of the past lets it be known that Ander, in fact, is NOT the mythical Seedbarer who is destined to fall in love with the Tearline girl. Nope, he's some kid from California that the evil Seedbarer's stole at birth for their own use since his quirks [magical powers that we all supposedly have but don't use until the leopard-headed one tells us about and suddenly we're back in the game] matched that of the evil ones. After that, Eureka's all "Ander-who," which is very telling of this character.
I mean, I felt BAD for Ander, the stalker. She just drops him, leaves him there to go flirt with Atlas/Brooks, the person who wants to use her [kill her? never clear on that part] while Ander wants to do nothing but save her. And she keeps dropping her friends and family at every chance, though they do nothing to deserve it and are, really, the only interesting thing about this book. The main character is just a bad person [which the author tries to clean up by saying yes, she is bad, but only because she comes from a long line of psychopaths. Lame.].
And then there was the ending [aka the last 100 pages] that made NO SENSE WHAT SO EVER! What was that? Did someone get high and finish the end of the book? And then did no one read it to decide if it was publish-worthy? It was just awful. And has cemented the fact that if there is a third book, I will not be reading it. Just horrible. Absolutely horrible.
Long story short, don't waste your time on this one.
I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
This book was HORRIBLE. Absolutely horrible. And on many different levels!
While the writing style of the first wasn't amazing, it was ten times better than this. Lauren Kate needed to do some serious edits - no one needs a simile every other sentence, nor do we need pointless background about Eureka and Brooks [especially since it was a cheap plot point to make us feel like Eureka has loved Brooks forever]. Also, reading is no fun if the author breaks down every minute detail of imagery and symbolism. We would have gotten the symbolism behind Eureka's locket, thunderstone, and the little girl's ribbon ON OUR OWN. No need to bring it up every time it was used. And while the first book described the setting to a t, I had a hard time deciphering where the characters were at 90% of the time [other than everything was purple]. Last writing point and then I'm done - please vary your sentence structure and starters! It's not good when a publish author skips this point more times than my fourth grade students. It's like the only sentence starters she knew was "she" or "he." Makes for a very dull read.
Now, I can normally overlook bad writing if the story is interesting enough. Sometimes a good story will trump the occasional writing quirk. But this story was not it. It was a jumbled up hot mess with no clear plot points or reasoning. It's like the author had a lot of cool ideas, wanted to use ALL of them, but had no idea how to link them together. Suddenly we go from a very normal world in book one to a bizarre, magic filled one that had no idea of its own laws and boundaries in book two. And within the book, each chapter brought on a new onslaught of WTF. It just didn't go together at all. There was obviously no map guiding this writer.
If the plot wasn't bad enough as a whole, the supposed "romance" of the story was hugely disappointing. First, Eureka's madly, deeply in love with Ander, the stalker from book one. They cross the ocean together, defying the odds of the universe since they're destined to be the end of the other. Even though she knows it's wrong, Eureka can't help but to fall in to his arms every time they're near. Well . . . that is until the leopard headed Seedbarer of the past lets it be known that Ander, in fact, is NOT the mythical Seedbarer who is destined to fall in love with the Tearline girl. Nope, he's some kid from California that the evil Seedbarer's stole at birth for their own use since his quirks [magical powers that we all supposedly have but don't use until the leopard-headed one tells us about and suddenly we're back in the game] matched that of the evil ones. After that, Eureka's all "Ander-who," which is very telling of this character.
I mean, I felt BAD for Ander, the stalker. She just drops him, leaves him there to go flirt with Atlas/Brooks, the person who wants to use her [kill her? never clear on that part] while Ander wants to do nothing but save her. And she keeps dropping her friends and family at every chance, though they do nothing to deserve it and are, really, the only interesting thing about this book. The main character is just a bad person [which the author tries to clean up by saying yes, she is bad, but only because she comes from a long line of psychopaths. Lame.].
And then there was the ending [aka the last 100 pages] that made NO SENSE WHAT SO EVER! What was that? Did someone get high and finish the end of the book? And then did no one read it to decide if it was publish-worthy? It was just awful. And has cemented the fact that if there is a third book, I will not be reading it. Just horrible. Absolutely horrible.
Long story short, don't waste your time on this one.