A review by a_kt
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

Sadly, this book was a disappointment. The premise and "alternate history" feel of it is so intriguing, but the execution is just... not good. The characters are so two-dimensional they felt like parodies of actual people. The plot was fairly nonsensical. It was supposed to revolve around this whole revenge situation- but it was really unclear as to who the revenge was for? I think there was supposed to be some big twist/reveal towards the end of the book but the way it was written I had a moment of, "Wait, I thought we already knew this? Didn't they already tell us this was what happened? Or was it just so obvious I subconsciously 'figured out' the twist a while ago?" There was a romantic subplot, which had exactly negative chemistry. The end of the book ended up having one deus ex hippo after another. Needless character deaths. Lots of things that were very poorly explained. Just about the only saving grace of this book was that it was very short. 

I'm going to start collecting books into a new subgenre called "YA novels except they say the f-word sometimes" which consists of books that are written at a middle-school level but advertised as adult fiction simply because some curse words are thrown around. That's exactly how I would describe this book. 
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