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A review by becandbooks
Dividing Eden by Joelle Charbonneau
2.0
I wanted to love this book.
I really really liked the concept, while a little done-before/cliche, and I'll admit I was completely suckered in by the cover. I freaking adore this cover.
But I honestly just found the book underwhelming.
The blurb for this book tells you that the MCs, Carys and Andreus, must participate in the Trial of Succession in order to gain the title to the throne. And yet it wasn't until 4 hours into the audiobook that story actually got to the Trials.
Now if everything up until this point had been world-building and character developing I may have been okay with this. And yet it wasn't.
Despite all the time it took to get to the main plot line, at this point I knew two things.
A) there was a war but who it really was with (there seemed to be more than a few names mentioned) and what the actual status of the war was (are they in mortal peril? are they winning?) wasn't really known.
And B) the MC's were twins that stuck their necks out for each other, however this fell apart pretty quickly despite how much it was emphasized. Also, there was some vague dark, eerie stuff happening but not really elaborated on. And there was a youngun' slave boy who kept popping up.
Not much else.
The actual grisly bits of the story all seemed pretty flat and dull. Again, I was underwhelmed.
And the ending seemed a bit out of nowhere. I felt as though there was next to nothing as far as foreshadowing. Or perhaps I was bored by this point and had missed something important.
A lot of people seem to have enjoyed this book, but it just didn't give me anything that I haven't read in a much better and more engaging style elsewhere.
I really really liked the concept, while a little done-before/cliche, and I'll admit I was completely suckered in by the cover. I freaking adore this cover.
But I honestly just found the book underwhelming.
The blurb for this book tells you that the MCs, Carys and Andreus, must participate in the Trial of Succession in order to gain the title to the throne. And yet it wasn't until 4 hours into the audiobook that story actually got to the Trials.
Now if everything up until this point had been world-building and character developing I may have been okay with this. And yet it wasn't.
Despite all the time it took to get to the main plot line, at this point I knew two things.
A) there was a war but who it really was with (there seemed to be more than a few names mentioned) and what the actual status of the war was (are they in mortal peril? are they winning?) wasn't really known.
And B) the MC's were twins that stuck their necks out for each other, however this fell apart pretty quickly despite how much it was emphasized. Also, there was some vague dark, eerie stuff happening but not really elaborated on. And there was a youngun' slave boy who kept popping up.
Not much else.
The actual grisly bits of the story all seemed pretty flat and dull. Again, I was underwhelmed.
And the ending seemed a bit out of nowhere. I felt as though there was next to nothing as far as foreshadowing. Or perhaps I was bored by this point and had missed something important.
A lot of people seem to have enjoyed this book, but it just didn't give me anything that I haven't read in a much better and more engaging style elsewhere.