ks27 's review for:

The Art of Escaping by Erin Callahan
2.0

I received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Did not finish.

I was excited for this book originally because the summary sounded different and interesting. It wasn't something I'd really read before and I thought it was going to be one I blew through in no time. Unfortunately, I could not connect with this title at all really.

My struggle with this mainly had to do with the characters. I didn't think there was anything special about them. They were pretty typical for YA and not in a way that hooked me. The opposite in fact. Truthfully, I found Mattie to be somewhat annoying and Will just felt incredibly inauthentic. I feel like the author struggled to capture the teenage voice a lot with them and it resulted in characters that read oddly for me.

Additionally I felt the pacing was off. It was a slow start. A very, very slow start. I had to force myself to keep going early on in the novel. I wish the story had picked up sooner than it did because I might've been more interested then. I might've been able to finish it. But I just couldn't get past my issues with the pacing and the characters.