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synth 's review for:
Threadbare
by Elle E. Ire
Potential readers should be aware that his story contains a scene of rape towards the last third.
This book certainly has a number of things I didn't like:
- the rape scene, although not entirely badly written and (too) quickly exploring the victim's feelings, unfounded or justified, felt superfluous and unneeded in the grand scheme of things.We already know the rapist is a psychopath who gets off of torture and violation, and the victim already has enough rage against him and is already losing her grasp on her humanity ;
- each new revelation about the evil plot, who is behind it, why, and what they are doing, fall a little flat, and I'm not sure if it's because one can see them coming from quite far away or if it was more a problem with the writing (same thing withthe thread imagery which we're told over and over is about the main character's sanity turning out to be about the emotional block on her love );
- speaking of writing, I was not 100% sold on it, it is certainly not awful but it's too... utilitarian or... "military" too often to really be to my taste;
- the relationship between the main characters feels entirely too codependant to be healthy, and this is merely mentioned by someone who knows the risk it presents, and then promptly discarded by the writing with the main characters, especially the one who should know better, not caring and just doing it without trying to find a way to be healthy in that respect. I am hoping this gets explored and resolved in the next book.(Additionally, slightly related to that point, I was not comfortable with the concept of empaths being judged for their promiscuity (1) by the empath character, and (2) when this behavior is entirely the result of society imposing their desires on them.)
But I did like enough things to like the book:
- tbf, the emotions, including the burying and not recognizing of feelings by the main character (which at times could be too much but mostly felt realistic), feel really well written despite this too utilitarian technique of writing, which is to say, the book made me care for the characters;
- most characters (even secondary ones with varying degrees of success) are complex enough and relatable enough to get invested in them, obviously this goes especially for the two main characters, the "machine" moreso than the empath (who may be a bit too much fiercely caring loving too much of the time to be healthy and realistic, but still manages to be human and make mistakes). On that note, their dynamic is a bit too strong broody unemotional manly butch and weak effusive emotional feminine femme to my liking, but the emotional writing mentioned in the previous point doesn't really put it in relief often and generally makes it work, and this is somewhat a little counterbalanced by the manly one understanding she is not as unemotional as she thinks, and other plot points like the brain compatibility and thefact that she is only unemotional because there was a block on her ability to love anyone in any capacity including herself ;
- the pacing was well done, it was not even a consideration at any point;
- the use of the two POV for the two main characters, one per chapter, which is something that I find really hard to make work well, actually did here;
- even the big drama that makes them avoid each other for a while before they realize they can't live without each other is weaved into the story in a way that works, both as a consequence of and to advance the plot, and makes sense in the story, and the resolution is mostly believable and organic, even if it relies too much on the very Hollywood-like "we've been through hell so that my love for you could finally overcome my anger at you".
This book certainly has a number of things I didn't like:
- the rape scene, although not entirely badly written and (too) quickly exploring the victim's feelings, unfounded or justified, felt superfluous and unneeded in the grand scheme of things.
- each new revelation about the evil plot, who is behind it, why, and what they are doing, fall a little flat, and I'm not sure if it's because one can see them coming from quite far away or if it was more a problem with the writing (same thing with
- speaking of writing, I was not 100% sold on it, it is certainly not awful but it's too... utilitarian or... "military" too often to really be to my taste;
- the relationship between the main characters feels entirely too codependant to be healthy, and this is merely mentioned by someone who knows the risk it presents, and then promptly discarded by the writing with the main characters, especially the one who should know better, not caring and just doing it without trying to find a way to be healthy in that respect. I am hoping this gets explored and resolved in the next book.
But I did like enough things to like the book:
- tbf, the emotions, including the burying and not recognizing of feelings by the main character (which at times could be too much but mostly felt realistic), feel really well written despite this too utilitarian technique of writing, which is to say, the book made me care for the characters;
- most characters (even secondary ones with varying degrees of success) are complex enough and relatable enough to get invested in them, obviously this goes especially for the two main characters, the "machine" moreso than the empath (who may be a bit too much fiercely caring loving too much of the time to be healthy and realistic, but still manages to be human and make mistakes). On that note, their dynamic is a bit too strong broody unemotional manly butch and weak effusive emotional feminine femme to my liking, but the emotional writing mentioned in the previous point doesn't really put it in relief often and generally makes it work, and this is somewhat a little counterbalanced by the manly one understanding she is not as unemotional as she thinks, and other plot points like the brain compatibility and the
- the pacing was well done, it was not even a consideration at any point;
- the use of the two POV for the two main characters, one per chapter, which is something that I find really hard to make work well, actually did here;
- even the big drama that makes them avoid each other for a while before they realize they can't live without each other is weaved into the story in a way that works, both as a consequence of and to advance the plot, and makes sense in the story, and the resolution is mostly believable and organic, even if it relies too much on the very Hollywood-like "we've been through hell so that my love for you could finally overcome my anger at you".