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fiorentinabelga 's review for:
The Familiars
by Stacey Halls
DID NOT FINISH: 45%
I DNF'd this halfway through because I just couldn't take it anymore. None of the characters feel compelling in any way and constantly make baffling decisions in a story that goes nowhere fast.
The female lead is insufferable and her personality solely consists of her pregnancy and complaining about how young and stupid she is. She keeps repeating she's incapable of running a house as a mistress, despite having been raised in a wealthy noble house with the express purpose of marrying to her station and having been married and in said house for four (!) years already.
The male lead, female lead's husband, is about as a flat of a character as I could imagine: the handsome rich nobleman who swept her off her feet and turns out to be an asshole, unsurprisingly. Halfway in, we still have no idea about what he wants or why he does what he does. He's just there to antagonise and patronise the female lead, and give her the big "I must become brave and fight against the Men" moment she needs 100 pages in.
The only slightly interesting character is that of the midwife, but she too is a horribly flat character that's only there to be mysterious and moody and "witchy". Oh, and poor. So that the rich female lead can develop compassion for those below her station.
Because that's eventually everything that happens n the first half of the book: female lead complains about her life and then learns other people have it way worse so it makes her sad. For a book that claims to be about the Pendle witch trials, said trials are entirely in the periphery and are only vaguely discussed by secondary characters so the female lead can be Surprised and Confused and Concerned.
I really, really tried to get through this book but I just couldn't.
The female lead is insufferable and her personality solely consists of her pregnancy and complaining about how young and stupid she is. She keeps repeating she's incapable of running a house as a mistress, despite having been raised in a wealthy noble house with the express purpose of marrying to her station and having been married and in said house for four (!) years already.
The male lead, female lead's husband, is about as a flat of a character as I could imagine: the handsome rich nobleman who swept her off her feet and turns out to be an asshole, unsurprisingly. Halfway in, we still have no idea about what he wants or why he does what he does. He's just there to antagonise and patronise the female lead, and give her the big "I must become brave and fight against the Men" moment she needs 100 pages in.
The only slightly interesting character is that of the midwife, but she too is a horribly flat character that's only there to be mysterious and moody and "witchy". Oh, and poor. So that the rich female lead can develop compassion for those below her station.
Because that's eventually everything that happens n the first half of the book: female lead complains about her life and then learns other people have it way worse so it makes her sad. For a book that claims to be about the Pendle witch trials, said trials are entirely in the periphery and are only vaguely discussed by secondary characters so the female lead can be Surprised and Confused and Concerned.
I really, really tried to get through this book but I just couldn't.