Pub Date: January 18, 2011
Publisher: Delacorte Press
FTC: Purchased myself
I'm definitely in the minority on this one. I didn't love it. Didn't hate it. Just feel kind of...meh. There may be spoilers below (although I'll try to keep this both short and vague).
Main observations:
1. Tense and POV. The book switches between 1st person past and 1st person present. With a little of Dani's POV thrown in. I found this extremely annoying. I am NOT a fan of 1st person present. And I honestly don't think Karen Marie Moning (KMM) does a good job with it. She does much better with 1st person past.
(For those wondering, 1st person present is : I walk to the store and open the door. 1st person past is I walked to the store and opened the door.)
But mainly, I wish she'd pick a tense and stick the hell with it. It yanked me out of the story each time she switched.
2. Barrons. According to Katiebabs, Barrons is a douche. I wholeheartedly agree with that description. He's an ass. And while I don't get the appeal, I appreciated that KMM kept him consistent until the very last book. When, apparently, he turns from annoyingly taciturn to irritatingly loquacious. I didn't buy that he'd open up that quickly and thoroughly after all that time keeping Mac in the dark.
3. Pacing. Part of my problem with the book comes down to pacing. And I think this goes directly back to the switching of tenses, POVs etc. It throws off the entire stride of the book. It made some parts drag so badly, I skimmed.
Overall, I was disappointed in this book. It answered most of what I wanted answered, but didn't hold my attention as well as it should have. The tenses shift really affected my enjoyment of the book. And the lack of consistency with the characters seemed odd. It felt like KMM compromised some of the essence of the characters to finagle the ending she did. Her loyal fans will probably be happy with this, but as someone who only sometimes liked the series, this just wasn't that great.
My Grade: C+*
*I'm in the minority on this one. Everyone else seems to love it.
Barrons le Douche! :P
ReplyDeleteMy review about the Fever series will be up on Friday.
Nice review :)
@KB,
ReplyDeleteLOL He is a total douche. I really don't get the appeal for his character. Can't wait to see your review. Feeling a bit lonely among the 'OMG it's awesome' reviews. :D
You won't be lonely for long.
ReplyDeleteHate hate hate reading 1st person anything, but I sucked it up for the sake of the book. Barrons may be douchey - but he is a hunky, brooding sexy douchey and I would "say his name" any day of the week. I really liked Shadowfever, so many twists and turns. Well worth the read to me even though I hate 1st person!
ReplyDelete@Book Pimp,
ReplyDeleteSee...I love 1st person past tense. But cannot stand 1st person present. Most of all, I just hated that she kept switching from one to the other. It was the flip flopping that killed me.
Barrons is sexy...but way too snotty for me. Not that Mac doesn't deserve the snottiness.