A review by jconn4
The Damned by Renée Ahdieh

1.0

Spoiler

I’ll go ahead and give this a 1.5/5 because I DNF’d this about 100 pages in. I’d like to share my thoughts about those first 100 pages.

I really liked “The Beautiful.” It was entertaining. It kept me turning pages. And the cliffhanger at the end? I was taken enough that I would even describe myself as eager to read the next in the series.

“The Damned” threw me off almost immediately, and this is due in part to the structure. Writing multiple POVs can be difficult to pull off well, as many times it fails to add meaningfully to the story or, worse yet, keeps the reader from being able to immerse themselves in the world since the perspective is always changing. I put the book down too soon to be able to comment on the former (though I strongly suspect that it did in fact become a problem), but the latter is what really challenged me. Which is surprising, since I don’t remember having any issues with the POVs or tense in “The Beautiful,” and therefore don’t understand why the author felt the need for such a drastic shakeup here.

Sebastien’s chapters were in first person, but Theo me chapter of Celine’s I read was not—nor were any of the other characters’ chapters for that matter. If my memory serves me correctly, his were also told in present tense, while the others remained past. This bizarre flip flop really threw me, and I personally found it unenjoyable to read. It lacked consistency, which can sometimes be a good thing—but in this case, frustrated me more than anything. For this reason I came to dread Sebastien’s chapters as well. Not only were they wildly different from the rest of the book, but they seemed full of nothing but angry brooding and his friends trying to baby him while simultaneously complaining about his behavior. Again, this struck me as very frustrating. A character I had liked more often than not in the previous book became insufferable to me here. I get he never wanted to be a vampire and I get that he would naturally be angry and upset, as well as driven by new impulses, but...he just lacked depth. It didn’t have to be all anger and despair and brooding all the time. I didn’t read far enough to get a grasp of Celine’s character in this sequel, so I can’t really comment on her. And maybe things get better the further you read. I just didn’t have the patience to stick around and find out.

Maybe one day I’ll return to this book and force myself to read through it all. But I had other books waiting that I knew I’d have a much more pleasant time reading, so I decided to put my attention there.