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sauvageloup 's review for:
Seeker
by Arwen Elys Dayton
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
a difficult book to rate, it just felt messy
pros:
- it felt original, i like the Dreads and their role in the path of the Seekers (and their failure to police the Seekers as they should)
- Shinobu grew on me; he was complicated and acted in interesting ways
- the ending was gripping and tense and i wanted to know what'd happen then
- the writing itself was decent
cons:
- Quin was constantly reactive. The only choice she really made was to forget her old life entirely. she was batted around by her father, by John, by shinobu and makes few choices of her own. I felt little investment in her at all
- there seemed such a focus on setting up John's backstory that John himself was boring. He had two facets to his character: loving Quin and wanting to fulfil his promise to his mother. Other than that, he was an empty character, with a weak moral compass and little depth
- timeline and pacing messed up, making it really hard to get gripped. The section in the middle of 'various time periods' was so random and out of place. it was as if the author had gone 'i can't fit this in anywhere else, i'll just dump it here'. And the pacing was bizarre - there wasn't much of continued tension and the climaxes were all over the place with the sudden shift to Hong Kong not really set up and Quin forgetting everything creating a weird lull in the middle
- Americanisms really annoying - the use of dumpster and other things that someone from Scotland would never say. Needed a solid edit
- the whole love affair business was a mess. If Shinobu had been set up as anything other than an incel cousin who thinks he's owed Quin's affection, i might've really liked, as i did when he was away from Quin. Then Quin's sudden about-face within the space of two pages. Like?? where did that come from?? sure, i didn't mind them as a couple, but where was the build up? And was having Shinobu as distantly related rly necessary?
just really struggled to get properly into this. It meandered messily, plot points were barely set up. The premise was good and there were a lot of interesting details, and the writing was decent, but the way it was put together was like a badly fitted-together puzzle.
pros:
- it felt original, i like the Dreads and their role in the path of the Seekers (and their failure to police the Seekers as they should)
- Shinobu grew on me; he was complicated and acted in interesting ways
- the ending was gripping and tense and i wanted to know what'd happen then
- the writing itself was decent
cons:
- Quin was constantly reactive. The only choice she really made was to forget her old life entirely. she was batted around by her father, by John, by shinobu and makes few choices of her own. I felt little investment in her at all
- there seemed such a focus on setting up John's backstory that John himself was boring. He had two facets to his character: loving Quin and wanting to fulfil his promise to his mother. Other than that, he was an empty character, with a weak moral compass and little depth
- timeline and pacing messed up, making it really hard to get gripped. The section in the middle of 'various time periods' was so random and out of place. it was as if the author had gone 'i can't fit this in anywhere else, i'll just dump it here'. And the pacing was bizarre - there wasn't much of continued tension and the climaxes were all over the place with the sudden shift to Hong Kong not really set up and Quin forgetting everything creating a weird lull in the middle
- Americanisms really annoying - the use of dumpster and other things that someone from Scotland would never say. Needed a solid edit
- the whole love affair business was a mess. If Shinobu had been set up as anything other than an incel cousin who thinks he's owed Quin's affection, i might've really liked, as i did when he was away from Quin. Then Quin's sudden about-face within the space of two pages. Like?? where did that come from?? sure, i didn't mind them as a couple, but where was the build up? And was having Shinobu as distantly related rly necessary?
just really struggled to get properly into this. It meandered messily, plot points were barely set up. The premise was good and there were a lot of interesting details, and the writing was decent, but the way it was put together was like a badly fitted-together puzzle.