Scan barcode
A review by mariebrzezinski
How does it feel? by Jeneane O'Riley
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
I'm convinced that everyone on booktok who was hyping this book up is just part of a huge joke to get more people to read this because this is the worst book I've read this year, potentially top five worst books I've ever read. I never write whole-ass reviews of books, but this called for one. Could I have DNF'd? Yes. However, I wanted to see it through to give it as complete a review as possible.
You can self-publish AND craft a great story; those are not mutually exclusive. However, this book does not do both of these things. I'm giving one star for the fact that this woman wrote a whole book and published it, which is not a small feat.
The story, though? Confusing AF. I could not be bothered to care about the FMC. The author clearly has some internalized misogyny that was seeping into the FMC, with comments about clothes being "slutty" with a clear implication that we're meant to think slutty = bad, less than, beneath her, etc. The "twist" was a head scratcher and I was so confused by new character names and relationships being thrown around in the last TEN PERCENT of the book that anything meant to be shocking didn't have any impact. I've never read anything in the ACOTAR series so I can't comment on those comparisons.
Finally, the copy editing. I get that not every self-publishing author can afford a top-tier editor, but you would think that ONE of the people the author mentioned in the acknowledgements would notice "thrown" when she meant "throne." "Yea" instead of "yeah" was one of the worst offenders, and it was EVERY. TIME. Were we purposely ignoring the suggestions of whatever word program we used? The whole book read like a story one of my well-meaning high school students would write: A fever dream desperately in need of an outline.
This was truly the blind leading the blind and I have no clue why booktok is blowing this up. Just google the twist if you're that curious and save yourself the time!
You can self-publish AND craft a great story; those are not mutually exclusive. However, this book does not do both of these things. I'm giving one star for the fact that this woman wrote a whole book and published it, which is not a small feat.
The story, though? Confusing AF. I could not be bothered to care about the FMC. The author clearly has some internalized misogyny that was seeping into the FMC, with comments about clothes being "slutty" with a clear implication that we're meant to think slutty = bad, less than, beneath her, etc. The "twist" was a head scratcher and I was so confused by new character names and relationships being thrown around in the last TEN PERCENT of the book that anything meant to be shocking didn't have any impact. I've never read anything in the ACOTAR series so I can't comment on those comparisons.
Finally, the copy editing. I get that not every self-publishing author can afford a top-tier editor, but you would think that ONE of the people the author mentioned in the acknowledgements would notice "thrown" when she meant "throne." "Yea" instead of "yeah" was one of the worst offenders, and it was EVERY. TIME. Were we purposely ignoring the suggestions of whatever word program we used? The whole book read like a story one of my well-meaning high school students would write: A fever dream desperately in need of an outline.
This was truly the blind leading the blind and I have no clue why booktok is blowing this up. Just google the twist if you're that curious and save yourself the time!