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A review by rabecka26
Savages by Natalie Bennett
2.0
This book was a curiosity read for me. I generally enjoy horror, and I had never read a dark romance before, so I was curious about what classified a book as "dark." On that front, this book didn't disappoint. It was, in fact, very dark. The character development was really well done. Both main characters were pretty twisted and definitely not your typical hero and heroine, but I understood their madness to a point because of their very well developed backstories. I even empathized with them in some of the more horrific scenes.
I learned from this book, though, that I'm not a huge fan of dark romance. The mixture of horror and sex was a bit much for me, but that's not at all why I rated the book so low. I understand that there are a lot of people out there who are into that, and I absolutely don't judge. The reason for my rating is because there are some fundamental problems with the book as a whole.
First of all, there was so much potential with regard to world building in a novel like this. I wanted more description. I wanted to see more of the world and understand how it came to be this way. Instead, the author chose to fill the space with repetitive sex scenes. Very disappointing.
More importantly, though, I think there's an expectation, and I would argue even a responsibility, for an author to learn and master certain things before publishing a book, things like plot structure. This author has certainly not done that. The result here is that the book feels like a series of bloody sex scenes strung together with no real rhyme or reason. A purpose is hinted at in the beginning (both main characters want to find this cult leader, David, for revenge), but no real progress is made toward that goal until the very end, where the book then stops abruptly, literally in the middle of a scene. I closed my kindle app furious after that because I felt cheated. This was in no way a complete story, and I am absolutely not going to spend money for the second book in a very long and drawn out series just to find out how the story ends, something I should've been given in the 1st book. I hate this new trend of authors writing half a book and tossing it out there with the expectation that readers will want to know how it ends badly enough to buy a second book. It's lazy and it's disingenuous.
I learned from this book, though, that I'm not a huge fan of dark romance. The mixture of horror and sex was a bit much for me, but that's not at all why I rated the book so low. I understand that there are a lot of people out there who are into that, and I absolutely don't judge. The reason for my rating is because there are some fundamental problems with the book as a whole.
First of all, there was so much potential with regard to world building in a novel like this. I wanted more description. I wanted to see more of the world and understand how it came to be this way. Instead, the author chose to fill the space with repetitive sex scenes. Very disappointing.
More importantly, though, I think there's an expectation, and I would argue even a responsibility, for an author to learn and master certain things before publishing a book, things like plot structure. This author has certainly not done that. The result here is that the book feels like a series of bloody sex scenes strung together with no real rhyme or reason. A purpose is hinted at in the beginning (both main characters want to find this cult leader, David, for revenge), but no real progress is made toward that goal until the very end, where the book then stops abruptly, literally in the middle of a scene. I closed my kindle app furious after that because I felt cheated. This was in no way a complete story, and I am absolutely not going to spend money for the second book in a very long and drawn out series just to find out how the story ends, something I should've been given in the 1st book. I hate this new trend of authors writing half a book and tossing it out there with the expectation that readers will want to know how it ends badly enough to buy a second book. It's lazy and it's disingenuous.