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A review by swamphag
Enjoy the Dance by Heidi Cullinan
3.0
This is a weird review because for me personally this book would get three stars, but I think for a lot of other people this book would get a solid four star rating. What I didn’t like about it has less to do with the quality of the book itself and more to do with my personal reading preferences and pet peeves. So please keep that in mind when reading this review, and if stuff I don’t like is something you enjoy then I say go for it and read this book!
I really enjoyed the first half of the book. Cullinan did a good job setting up all the plot points she wanted to juggle and developing the characters. Spenser (the spelling of this name distracted me the entire book!!) was my favorite because he was a shy nerd with a big heart. The only problem is that some of his background/family history felt more like a convenient plot point than anything I ended up caring about, and distracted from other character development.
For all that he was a major plot point, Duan was the least developed main character for me. It was like he was there to drive the plot more than to be a person. He spent the majority of the book being talked about instead of talking, which is fine, but it was odd seeing as he lived with Spenser.
That being said the first half of the book these characters were really great. I was on board and ready for their character development and growth, and that’s where they started falling flat for me. Less flesh and blood, and more wooden.
Where the book lost me completely was at about 80% of the way through. The pace suddenly picked up and ALL OF THE THINGS happened at once. For me the suddenness of the plot twists made a lot of them unbelievable, because they did not seem true to the characters or their relationships. It ended up just stuffing the book full of unnecessary plot topics instead of focusing on what she was already developing.
There was work drama, gay marriage drama, immigration drama, foster/adoption drama, etc. all at once, and I kind of checked out because it was stressful and made things become shallow instead of developed. The book is kind of dense for these reasons, but it isn’t until the end that they get to be too much. I feel that if she had trimmed some of the major focus points of the book then it would have been fine, but I think she lost the rhythm of the book trying to do too much.
To top this off things got wrapped up too neatly, so it was like build, build, build, sudden resolution. Total let down. If there was less drama handled better it would have been a stronger book, but for me the payout at the end of the book wasn’t enough.
The characters reaction to the injustices they faced was a little too Scarlett O’Hara I’ll never go hungry again. Works in a movie, but in real life you’d be like, “Calm down. Sheesh!!!” What I am getting at with this analogy is that people got pretty preachy and it disrupted the flow of the dialogue. I get it. This was obviously a book that dealt with things Cullinan is passionate about (immigration, gay rights, foster parenting), and I respect that, but the end result was blah.
It was a shame because I really enjoyed the first book. This one kind of got bogged down and it wasn’t because it was dealing with heavy topics. However, if you like books with conflict or you are personally passionate about these things you’ll enjoy this book a lot more than I did.
Side note that does not affect my rating: I LOVE the covers to this series.
I really enjoyed the first half of the book. Cullinan did a good job setting up all the plot points she wanted to juggle and developing the characters. Spenser (the spelling of this name distracted me the entire book!!) was my favorite because he was a shy nerd with a big heart. The only problem is that some of his background/family history felt more like a convenient plot point than anything I ended up caring about, and distracted from other character development.
For all that he was a major plot point, Duan was the least developed main character for me. It was like he was there to drive the plot more than to be a person. He spent the majority of the book being talked about instead of talking, which is fine, but it was odd seeing as he lived with Spenser.
That being said the first half of the book these characters were really great. I was on board and ready for their character development and growth, and that’s where they started falling flat for me. Less flesh and blood, and more wooden.
Where the book lost me completely was at about 80% of the way through. The pace suddenly picked up and ALL OF THE THINGS happened at once. For me the suddenness of the plot twists made a lot of them unbelievable, because they did not seem true to the characters or their relationships. It ended up just stuffing the book full of unnecessary plot topics instead of focusing on what she was already developing.
There was work drama, gay marriage drama, immigration drama, foster/adoption drama, etc. all at once, and I kind of checked out because it was stressful and made things become shallow instead of developed. The book is kind of dense for these reasons, but it isn’t until the end that they get to be too much. I feel that if she had trimmed some of the major focus points of the book then it would have been fine, but I think she lost the rhythm of the book trying to do too much.
To top this off things got wrapped up too neatly, so it was like build, build, build, sudden resolution. Total let down. If there was less drama handled better it would have been a stronger book, but for me the payout at the end of the book wasn’t enough.
The characters reaction to the injustices they faced was a little too Scarlett O’Hara I’ll never go hungry again. Works in a movie, but in real life you’d be like, “Calm down. Sheesh!!!” What I am getting at with this analogy is that people got pretty preachy and it disrupted the flow of the dialogue. I get it. This was obviously a book that dealt with things Cullinan is passionate about (immigration, gay rights, foster parenting), and I respect that, but the end result was blah.
It was a shame because I really enjoyed the first book. This one kind of got bogged down and it wasn’t because it was dealing with heavy topics. However, if you like books with conflict or you are personally passionate about these things you’ll enjoy this book a lot more than I did.
Side note that does not affect my rating: I LOVE the covers to this series.