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A review by smitch29
Shades of Hate by K.N. Banet
3.0
3.6
I really couldn't decide whether to round the rating up or down for this book. Overall, I enjoyed it, but there was never a moment where I was thinking "I really like this book", so alas, it gets rounded-down. To be fair, I thought this story was an improvement over that last book (regardless of their similar ratings). This story delved into how the politics of the US government interacts with the politics of the supernaturals. There was also more development of Jacky and Heath's relationship, they even reveal themselves to a couple other characters in this story.
To really understand my opinion on this book, there needs to be some baseline knowledge. This is a Kindle Unlimited series, so I do not expect it to be superb, and I will even admit this series is much better than a lot of UF books I've read from the KU collection. The first couple of books were the best, probably because they have the interesting world-building. There were clearly a few issues with the writing and the developing, but they were easily forgiven. As series progress it is isn't uncommon for them to improve in quality, since most of the exposition is done and authors can really up the intrigue and the nuance. This series seems to be suffering from the opposite. There is some improvement in the nuances of the world, but the weak points that existed in the first novels feel more exacerbated in this later books.
For instance, for the majority of the time reading this book, I frequently felt confusion for character's words and motivations. I am not skilled enough to fully understand what has gone wrong, but it doesn't feel seamless like most of my favorite, well-written stories do. By the end of this novel, I can admit I was back to intrigued and I was ready for the next book in the series to be published already. Looking back, I think my problem with it was that the author had an idea of where the book would start (because that is more or less where the plot left off in the previous novel) and where the book should end. I can even believe there was an idea of where to take the story throughout bits of the middle of the plot, but really the author just tried to flesh out the story to force it into the envisioned ending. It either wasn't fully fleshed out or was too forced, I can't quite say. The ultimate bad guy for this plot used minions to cover for him. The timing of his minions entering the story was never explained supposedly the big bad sent them at the time to sabotage Jacky's dealing with the US government, but they showed up awfully early for the big bad to have known that it was good timing. Perhaps I missed it, and the timing is easily explained. Perhaps, the author didn't elaborate on this point. Perhaps, the author forced this point. I can't really be sure, especially without re-reading, and I won't likely do that until the next book releases. But this is just an example where it felt like crucial parts were haphazard.
On a side note, this book also saw more of how terrible Jacky is at keeping secrets. How can anyone trust her when every secret she has tried to keep (i.e. her pack magics and who gave it to her, her relationship with Heath, her werecat status), she has let slip, usually in the wrong company.
Overall, I still enjoy this series and will continue with it when the next one releases.
I really couldn't decide whether to round the rating up or down for this book. Overall, I enjoyed it, but there was never a moment where I was thinking "I really like this book", so alas, it gets rounded-down. To be fair, I thought this story was an improvement over that last book (regardless of their similar ratings). This story delved into how the politics of the US government interacts with the politics of the supernaturals. There was also more development of Jacky and Heath's relationship, they even reveal themselves to a couple other characters in this story.
To really understand my opinion on this book, there needs to be some baseline knowledge. This is a Kindle Unlimited series, so I do not expect it to be superb, and I will even admit this series is much better than a lot of UF books I've read from the KU collection. The first couple of books were the best, probably because they have the interesting world-building. There were clearly a few issues with the writing and the developing, but they were easily forgiven. As series progress it is isn't uncommon for them to improve in quality, since most of the exposition is done and authors can really up the intrigue and the nuance. This series seems to be suffering from the opposite. There is some improvement in the nuances of the world, but the weak points that existed in the first novels feel more exacerbated in this later books.
For instance, for the majority of the time reading this book, I frequently felt confusion for character's words and motivations. I am not skilled enough to fully understand what has gone wrong, but it doesn't feel seamless like most of my favorite, well-written stories do. By the end of this novel, I can admit I was back to intrigued and I was ready for the next book in the series to be published already. Looking back, I think my problem with it was that the author had an idea of where the book would start (because that is more or less where the plot left off in the previous novel) and where the book should end. I can even believe there was an idea of where to take the story throughout bits of the middle of the plot, but really the author just tried to flesh out the story to force it into the envisioned ending. It either wasn't fully fleshed out or was too forced, I can't quite say. The ultimate bad guy for this plot used minions to cover for him. The timing of his minions entering the story was never explained supposedly the big bad sent them at the time to sabotage Jacky's dealing with the US government, but they showed up awfully early for the big bad to have known that it was good timing. Perhaps I missed it, and the timing is easily explained. Perhaps, the author didn't elaborate on this point. Perhaps, the author forced this point. I can't really be sure, especially without re-reading, and I won't likely do that until the next book releases. But this is just an example where it felt like crucial parts were haphazard.
On a side note, this book also saw more of how terrible Jacky is at keeping secrets. How can anyone trust her when every secret she has tried to keep (i.e. her pack magics and who gave it to her, her relationship with Heath, her werecat status), she has let slip, usually in the wrong company.
Overall, I still enjoy this series and will continue with it when the next one releases.