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A review by smart_girls_love_trashy_books
The Midnight Dance by Nikki Katz
2.0
-POTENTIAL SPOILERS-
-I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FOR FREE IN A GOODREADS CONTEST-
I think I just have bad luck with giveaways. Not only do I keep failing to read the book in a timely manner aside from the very first one I got, the books I get have always ended up being either really boring or not very good, or sometimes, both. Of course, this is nobody's fault. After all, it's not like I'm purposefully signing up for books I know I'm going to dislike. I still have hope that one day I'll win a good book from a giveaway.
And by the way, the quality of this book had nothing to do with how long it took me to read it, this is just a busy time of the year for me.
So let's stop stalling and get right into it, shall we?
Honestly, this book had a lot of positives going for it, but at the same time, I shouldn't have ignored those red flags. For starters, it's a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, the title being taken from the Russian version of the tale named The Midnight Dance. I love this fairytale and want to see more retellings of it, yet every retelling I've read hasn't been very good. And even the best ones have all kinds of serious problems, and this book is no exception.
Aside from the retelling aspect, I actually do like the idea of this novel. It had the potential to be really atmospheric and creepy, and while I don't think the author fully did that, she did at least make an attempt. I like the idea of these girls being experimented on and given false memories and the main character having to figure out why exactly this is. I liked the villain. That's pretty much it.
I think the biggest problem here is all of the unrecognized potential. This author isn't a bad author at all, not by any means, and I'm in fact looking forward to her second novel since it sounds really good. However, her writing style was way too simplistic and oddly-paced at times for much of the novel to make sense. This is a story that needs slow pacing, that needs really heavy atmosphere in order to make it work. But half of the time, the story is way too fast-paced and not very atmospheric. It is atmospheric in a few places, but not everywhere it needs to be.
I also really disliked the setting. This is supposedly Italy in the Victorian Era, yet a bunch of stuff is really modern and it's distracting. Believe it or not, I can suspend some of my disbelief when it comes to historical fiction because history isn't always straightforward. And a lot of things we think were invented recently have actually been around for eons, like paper or ice cream. (Both ironically invented by China) But this book keeps making references to things like cappuccinos and cardigans, in a really modern way that really throws me out of the story. And maybe things like those did exist in Victorian Italy, but even if they did, they most certainly were called something else.
I actually liked the whole steampunk-science angle with the villain's machine and plan. It was a lot sleeker than most steampunk usually is, and polished, but I didn't really feel like it was very out-of-place. However, I feel like the book never really explained how the machine worked or anything like that, which is important to the plot. Or why the main character's memories kept coming back. Or what the villain's plan in the first place even was.
As stated before, the pacing in this book seems really off. While at first I was glad it got down into the mystery and action really early on in the book, I started to regret that further along as it became obvious the author didn't really know what other twists to throw in. A lot of fast-paced action scenes happened that went nowhere and went by too fast for me to really feel anything about.
The pacing of this book was making me zone out hard, and I shouldn't ever zone out when I read a book If I do, then something is seriously wrong with the author. I also feel like nothing was really accomplished at the end. It just ended so....suddenly. It was really random.
A lot of people mentioned how there was petty drama among the girls, but I didn't really think that way. Maybe at the very start, but the main character is by herself for almost the entire book, so it's a moot point. I was actually waiting for those scenes, but they pretty much never came. There's also not much to the main character herself, but I'll excuse it this time because she is supposed to be brainwashed heavily and given a very inoffensive, docile personality. Although showing her becoming more feisty, caring, and free-spirited like she's described to be like as a child once the mind-wipe is gone would've been nice....
Would I recommend this? I have no idea. It has very many mixed reviews, mostly negative. However, a few people have really enjoyed this book so if this does sound interesting, then go on ahead and try it! After all, I originally found it very interesting.
And that's pretty much what I thought. Yes this review is kinda all-over the place, but so is the book. So I tried to make my review reflect the tone of the book.
-I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FOR FREE IN A GOODREADS CONTEST-
I think I just have bad luck with giveaways. Not only do I keep failing to read the book in a timely manner aside from the very first one I got, the books I get have always ended up being either really boring or not very good, or sometimes, both. Of course, this is nobody's fault. After all, it's not like I'm purposefully signing up for books I know I'm going to dislike. I still have hope that one day I'll win a good book from a giveaway.
And by the way, the quality of this book had nothing to do with how long it took me to read it, this is just a busy time of the year for me.
So let's stop stalling and get right into it, shall we?
Honestly, this book had a lot of positives going for it, but at the same time, I shouldn't have ignored those red flags. For starters, it's a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, the title being taken from the Russian version of the tale named The Midnight Dance. I love this fairytale and want to see more retellings of it, yet every retelling I've read hasn't been very good. And even the best ones have all kinds of serious problems, and this book is no exception.
Aside from the retelling aspect, I actually do like the idea of this novel. It had the potential to be really atmospheric and creepy, and while I don't think the author fully did that, she did at least make an attempt. I like the idea of these girls being experimented on and given false memories and the main character having to figure out why exactly this is. I liked the villain. That's pretty much it.
I think the biggest problem here is all of the unrecognized potential. This author isn't a bad author at all, not by any means, and I'm in fact looking forward to her second novel since it sounds really good. However, her writing style was way too simplistic and oddly-paced at times for much of the novel to make sense. This is a story that needs slow pacing, that needs really heavy atmosphere in order to make it work. But half of the time, the story is way too fast-paced and not very atmospheric. It is atmospheric in a few places, but not everywhere it needs to be.
I also really disliked the setting. This is supposedly Italy in the Victorian Era, yet a bunch of stuff is really modern and it's distracting. Believe it or not, I can suspend some of my disbelief when it comes to historical fiction because history isn't always straightforward. And a lot of things we think were invented recently have actually been around for eons, like paper or ice cream. (Both ironically invented by China) But this book keeps making references to things like cappuccinos and cardigans, in a really modern way that really throws me out of the story. And maybe things like those did exist in Victorian Italy, but even if they did, they most certainly were called something else.
I actually liked the whole steampunk-science angle with the villain's machine and plan. It was a lot sleeker than most steampunk usually is, and polished, but I didn't really feel like it was very out-of-place. However, I feel like the book never really explained how the machine worked or anything like that, which is important to the plot. Or why the main character's memories kept coming back. Or what the villain's plan in the first place even was.
As stated before, the pacing in this book seems really off. While at first I was glad it got down into the mystery and action really early on in the book, I started to regret that further along as it became obvious the author didn't really know what other twists to throw in. A lot of fast-paced action scenes happened that went nowhere and went by too fast for me to really feel anything about.
The pacing of this book was making me zone out hard, and I shouldn't ever zone out when I read a book If I do, then something is seriously wrong with the author. I also feel like nothing was really accomplished at the end. It just ended so....suddenly. It was really random.
A lot of people mentioned how there was petty drama among the girls, but I didn't really think that way. Maybe at the very start, but the main character is by herself for almost the entire book, so it's a moot point. I was actually waiting for those scenes, but they pretty much never came. There's also not much to the main character herself, but I'll excuse it this time because she is supposed to be brainwashed heavily and given a very inoffensive, docile personality. Although showing her becoming more feisty, caring, and free-spirited like she's described to be like as a child once the mind-wipe is gone would've been nice....
Would I recommend this? I have no idea. It has very many mixed reviews, mostly negative. However, a few people have really enjoyed this book so if this does sound interesting, then go on ahead and try it! After all, I originally found it very interesting.
And that's pretty much what I thought. Yes this review is kinda all-over the place, but so is the book. So I tried to make my review reflect the tone of the book.