A review by nicobellfiction
Whiteland by Rosie Cranie-Higgs

3.0

 

When I started this book, I thought of it as a fantasy horror story on steroids. I was sucked in immediately, ready to go down the rabbit hole of a unique fairy tale adventure. The beginning blew me away with uncertainty, and I couldn’t read fast enough to unravel the mystery. 

Then, everything started to sputter. Dialogue between the two main characters became repetitive. The adventures felt drawn out without a real sense of direction. The tension so brilliantly developed in the first act now dragged and nearly vanished mid-book. I started skimming and had to reread sections. 

Part of it was my own impatience. The delicate folds of the plot simply didn’t unravel fast enough. The reaction scenes seemed unnecessarily drawn out when I longed for more action. The protagonist’s arc didn’t develop quick enough to hold my attention which left me non-enthusiastically cheering for her throughout the final moments. 

It was disappointing, and I even found myself wondering how the shift had occurred. The actual writing style was well done. There’s vivid imagery and lovely descriptions throughout the entire book, and the action scenes incite all the senses, but even with this stellar technique, I couldn’t stay focused on a plot that simply lost speed in the middle. 

While this book wasn’t for me, I’d absolutely read another book by the author. It’s a unique premise with lots of imagination spilling into the story world. The author clearly is a skilled wordsmith in terms of syntax and sentence construction, and I’d love to read more in the future in hopes that plot development would continue to improve.