You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by veridiann
One for My Enemy by Olivie Blake
3.0
I'm always a sucker for a Romeo and Juliet retelling, especially if it has a fantasy element. I've loved Olivie Blake's other books and was very excited for this one.
The first quarter of the book had me HOOKED. I was so invested in the relationships between the characters and their fates and could not put it down. Sasha and Lev felt authentic and I loved their development and I was particularly excited when the chapters moved back to their narratives.
After the first quarter, the book started to get a bit convoluted. The witch element did not feel well fleshed out; the drug dealing seemed like a small side story when it was originally set out as something much more crucial; the miscommunication between who was dead or alive or which side they were on got very murky and dissolved a lot of the tension that the first part of the novel had crafted so well. Sometimes I felt like the dialogue was so poetically written that it verged on irrelevant to the actual book and I found myself skimming repetitive paragraphs about how beautiful and cruel Marya was and how she was the most powerful person in the world.
Overall, it was a new twist on Romeo and Juliet and with the plot and prose a bit tightened up, I could have reread this over and over again. (Side note to for the eARCs - the layout of this on a Kindle was horrendous to read! It is definitely more suited for a physical copy).
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The first quarter of the book had me HOOKED. I was so invested in the relationships between the characters and their fates and could not put it down. Sasha and Lev felt authentic and I loved their development and I was particularly excited when the chapters moved back to their narratives.
After the first quarter, the book started to get a bit convoluted. The witch element did not feel well fleshed out; the drug dealing seemed like a small side story when it was originally set out as something much more crucial; the miscommunication between who was dead or alive or which side they were on got very murky and dissolved a lot of the tension that the first part of the novel had crafted so well. Sometimes I felt like the dialogue was so poetically written that it verged on irrelevant to the actual book and I found myself skimming repetitive paragraphs about how beautiful and cruel Marya was and how she was the most powerful person in the world.
Overall, it was a new twist on Romeo and Juliet and with the plot and prose a bit tightened up, I could have reread this over and over again. (Side note to for the eARCs - the layout of this on a Kindle was horrendous to read! It is definitely more suited for a physical copy).
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.