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A review by gio_shelves
Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond
2.0
I received this book through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review
It's a 1.5. I'm sorry, but this is really full of tropes and I want to read something enjoyable. Now that I have time to read I don't want to use it to torture myself with books that have more tropes than pages.
I'll try to keep it short:
- the characters are flat. There's not much space for characterisation of whatsoever and I think that overall there was no growth for the main character nor the secondary ones. There was a lot of romance considering that these people are in love after a couple of weeks spent together and that bothered me, mainly for two reasons:
> there was nothing that justified the romance. The characters are not really fleshed out nor well developed, so there couldn't be chemistry. How can you ship two people when they don't have a personality? (Spoiler: you don't.)
> the romance was a giant trope itself: insta-lovey, kind of bad boy with a girl who doesn't even try to resist his charm, but obviously the bad boy can be redeemed. That doesn't work anymore.
- there was no world-building. I mean, the MC has "powers" because she's part of this...secret society? Big magical family? I don't even know what they are! We don't know why they have these powers, what these powers can and cannot do, which are their limits, how they came to be...nothing, literally!
- it was all rather predictable
- bad writing
"Dez grinned down at me, breathtakingly cocky and, yes, still rakish."
This was the MC at 9 percent. How can one be "breathtakingly cocky"? It's quite obvious that this didn't start in the best way for me. Obviously, the guy started flirting with her after two seconds. Maybe 1.7 seconds actually.
(And in about 3.7 seconds they were going on a secret, special date.)
And then, a few pages later, we had something like "yer a wizard, Harry"?
I'm sorry, but this was so juvenile! The writing, the plot, the characters and the romance, everything was extremely fast paced that it was impossible for me to like any of it. Things kept happening but nothing really stayed with me. Really juvenile.
"I nodded against his freshly T-shirted chest. “He might say no.”"
Guys, freshly T-shirted. I. Can't. Even.
Overall this is a big no for me.
It's a 1.5. I'm sorry, but this is really full of tropes and I want to read something enjoyable. Now that I have time to read I don't want to use it to torture myself with books that have more tropes than pages.
I'll try to keep it short:
- the characters are flat. There's not much space for characterisation of whatsoever and I think that overall there was no growth for the main character nor the secondary ones. There was a lot of romance considering that these people are in love after a couple of weeks spent together and that bothered me, mainly for two reasons:
> there was nothing that justified the romance. The characters are not really fleshed out nor well developed, so there couldn't be chemistry. How can you ship two people when they don't have a personality? (Spoiler: you don't.)
> the romance was a giant trope itself: insta-lovey, kind of bad boy with a girl who doesn't even try to resist his charm, but obviously the bad boy can be redeemed. That doesn't work anymore.
- there was no world-building. I mean, the MC has "powers" because she's part of this...secret society? Big magical family? I don't even know what they are! We don't know why they have these powers, what these powers can and cannot do, which are their limits, how they came to be...nothing, literally!
- it was all rather predictable
- bad writing
"Dez grinned down at me, breathtakingly cocky and, yes, still rakish."
This was the MC at 9 percent. How can one be "breathtakingly cocky"? It's quite obvious that this didn't start in the best way for me. Obviously, the guy started flirting with her after two seconds. Maybe 1.7 seconds actually.
(And in about 3.7 seconds they were going on a secret, special date.)
And then, a few pages later, we had something like "yer a wizard, Harry"?
I'm sorry, but this was so juvenile! The writing, the plot, the characters and the romance, everything was extremely fast paced that it was impossible for me to like any of it. Things kept happening but nothing really stayed with me. Really juvenile.
"I nodded against his freshly T-shirted chest. “He might say no.”"
Guys, freshly T-shirted. I. Can't. Even.
Overall this is a big no for me.