Scan barcode
A review by nooralshanti
Absence of Color by S.K. Wee
3.0
Absence of Color by S. K. Wee follows the paths of three children as they go through extremely harsh circumstances and become involved in the politics and troubles of their kingdoms. This is one of those stories that has a lot potential and was clearly well-planned, but a few little things about the writing bugged me and prevented it from getting a higher rating. First of all, it's a lot darker than you might imagine given the writing style and the youth of the characters.
This darkness mainly revolves around the character of Amir Mohana who is portrayed as a completely sadistic ruler that enjoys torturing and molesting children. And it's not just strangers that he abuses. He even turns his own daughter into a servant in the castle and then plans to sell her into slavery. I found his portrayal both cartoonish and disturbing at the same time. It was just way too much. Maybe if you enjoy darker stories this won't bother you too much, but I found it off-putting. Also, there are other instances of rape or attempted rape in this story as well as drug use, etc.
The other couple of little things that annoyed me were the unnatural sounding dialogue and the over-load of descriptions. The characters didn't sound real when they had conversations and it didn't seem realistic that these 12 year-olds were talking like this. Something about it wasn't natural. It's as if the author decided that this information was going to be revealed in this conversation and just forced it out of the character's mouths which made it sound unrealistic.The conversations just didn't flow naturally.
Also, I love world-building and the author clearly took a lot of time to build a detailed and pretty interesting world, but there was paragraph after paragraph of details about each town they walked through, each thing they saw along the way, that bogged the story down. World-building is important, but you have to portray it smoothly so that the reader doesn't feel like they're being bombarded with unnecessary details at every opportunity.
Despite these issues there were interesting things. They weren't handled very well - for example one character's father was revealed, but it was made so obvious that I, as a reader, knew it for a fact many chapters before the characters found out and it seemed like a wasted opportunity to create interesting tension. There were plots, rebellions being formed, adventures, and most interestingly a character was exploring his magical potential and discovering how to work it. If you're willing to overlook the weaknesses in writing I mentioned above then you might be able to enjoy all these interesting twists and turns and plots that the characters concoct.
Overall, I'd give it 2.5 or 3 stars. Check out the sample and see if the writing style works for you, if so then there is a lot of interesting stuff in this story you might enjoy.
This darkness mainly revolves around the character of Amir Mohana who is portrayed as a completely sadistic ruler that enjoys torturing and molesting children. And it's not just strangers that he abuses. He even turns his own daughter into a servant in the castle and then plans to sell her into slavery. I found his portrayal both cartoonish and disturbing at the same time. It was just way too much. Maybe if you enjoy darker stories this won't bother you too much, but I found it off-putting. Also, there are other instances of rape or attempted rape in this story as well as drug use, etc.
The other couple of little things that annoyed me were the unnatural sounding dialogue and the over-load of descriptions. The characters didn't sound real when they had conversations and it didn't seem realistic that these 12 year-olds were talking like this. Something about it wasn't natural. It's as if the author decided that this information was going to be revealed in this conversation and just forced it out of the character's mouths which made it sound unrealistic.The conversations just didn't flow naturally.
Also, I love world-building and the author clearly took a lot of time to build a detailed and pretty interesting world, but there was paragraph after paragraph of details about each town they walked through, each thing they saw along the way, that bogged the story down. World-building is important, but you have to portray it smoothly so that the reader doesn't feel like they're being bombarded with unnecessary details at every opportunity.
Despite these issues there were interesting things. They weren't handled very well - for example one character's father was revealed, but it was made so obvious that I, as a reader, knew it for a fact many chapters before the characters found out and it seemed like a wasted opportunity to create interesting tension. There were plots, rebellions being formed, adventures, and most interestingly a character was exploring his magical potential and discovering how to work it. If you're willing to overlook the weaknesses in writing I mentioned above then you might be able to enjoy all these interesting twists and turns and plots that the characters concoct.
Overall, I'd give it 2.5 or 3 stars. Check out the sample and see if the writing style works for you, if so then there is a lot of interesting stuff in this story you might enjoy.