michellemartha_ 's review for:

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

3.0

dark mysterious slow-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I honestly didn’t love this book. I was excited for a fantasy book that took place in NYC but I was a bit disappointed and it wasn’t something I’d recommend. It might also be because I was interrupted reading the book halfway through and returned it.

I honestly always found Rachel suspicious and wasn’t surprised when I found out she murdered Patrick. It just wasn’t shocking. I did find Leo stealing artwork shocking but then adding that Rachel and Leo were together before seemed like a petty twist but also a second thought that really wasn’t that important. I get it was supposed to amplify Rachel being a bad person but it was sad that Ann didn’t even have one good person in the Cloisters. It was a great twist at the end when Ann killed Rachel. It almost showed that Ann was more similar to Rachel than she’d like and she took full credit for the research. It honestly mad me like Ann even less. I know Rachel was horrible but what did Patrick do? She didn’t need to get him out too

. And honestly, I didn’t like how Ann treated her mom. I know she was trying to escape her old life but not calling her mom back when she knew she was grieving was something I honestly didn’t like. I also hated how she acted towards Laure. I get that she wasn’t there for her after her dads death but she put Rachel above all else just

to be stabbed in the back by her

Ann just seems like a shit friend and daughter and it was hard for me to root for her throughout the book. Seemed like a basically “small town girl in a big city trying to find herself” except she’s a bitch and only cares about her own ambitions. Maybe I didn’t like this book because I didn’t really like Ann. I did find myself rooting for her when

she was pursuing things with Leo, but once they started hiding info from Patrick, it rubbed me the wrong way. He was the reason she even had the internship. Although it could be a critic of men taking advantage of female researchers but Patrick never gave me that impression