Darkside Sun (Entangled Embrace)

by Jocelyn Adams

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

New Adult, Paranormal, and a blurb that hints at a student-teacher relationship? I was ready to really like this one! Unfortunately, Darkside Sun failed on all three components. It started off pretty good. The author wasted no time getting the plot rolling, and we immediately learned what was going on without it being dragged out forever. Addison can see "rifts" which are the dead ripping their way back into the living world in order to take over a body. One of these rifts opens in her dorm room, causing her to be late for class. Professor Asher Green is not forgiving of tardiness, but when a rift opens in his class, he notices that Addison noticed. From there he thrusts a secret bible at her which explains exactly what is happening.

My first problem with Darkside Sun was that it never felt like NA, mostly because Addison seems really immature. I wasn't the most mature 18 year old, but I also didn't spend all of my time worrying about whether Daddy was proud of me, or if Daddy's underwear has too many holes, or if Daddy misses me, and oh my favorite shirt that Daddy bought me in high school got thrown out. Blah, blah, blah! She's in college, yes, but this could have been set during a high school summer vacation for all of the time she spent in class!

I also just didn't like Addison. She engages in some subtle slut-shaming in the opening chapters (she has a promiscuous roommate and the girls in her classes blatantly check out the professor). Then she gets defensive when Asher points out that she has a "small town mind" but not long after that she proclaims that she's a "proud redneck." In my experience, being a redneck is not something to be proud of. Being proud of her small town roots is fine, but trying to prove that you're not small town minded is kind of defeated by being a self-proclaimed redneck. Even if she wasn't "small town minded," she was at the very least small minded.

I also don't get this need to write heroines who are anti-dresses, anti-heels, anti-makeup, and don't know how to use a blowdryer. Addison only wears plaid and denim. She acts like dresses are poisonous! I don't wear makeup 99% of the time, and I never blowdry my hair, but because I'm lazy, not because I "don't know how." I only wear dresses, but that's because I don't like the way pants feel. I wore them when I had to though. I didn't get the sense that Addison just didn't like heels, dresses, and makeup on herself, but that she just found them wrong in general. There is more to life than flannel!

Now, for this Professor Asher Green. He is alpha male to the extreme, but it's not done in a sexy way. He's just a straight up manipulative, controlling, spoiled brat, asshole. He's constantly demanding things of Addison and yelling at her. He only refers to her as "Plaid" which started as an insult, and I think was suppose to morph into a kind of term of endearment, but she doesn't like it! The student-teacher fantasy was also ruined by the fact that he's 21. Although I suppose the real question is how long he's been 21, since he doesn't age.

Darkside Sun's world building was also lacking. The wraiths trying to get into our world just didn't make sense. They're suppose to be the dead traveling between parallel universes to take over bodies and kind of live again. But are they just the dead from other worlds? Then why are they choosing our world to inhabit instead of their own? Or are they also showing up in other worlds? Are our dead also among these wraiths? Is it all of the dead, or just ones with unfinished business?

There's also a no touching rule among the guardians (people who can see/feel the wraiths and fight against them). Apparently if two guardians touch, skin-to-skin, there's pain and possible death! Why? It felt to me like this was just a way to increase the sexual tension, since Addison and Asher aren't suppose to touch because he's her teacher, and now because they're both guardians and might die if they do! That's not a good enough explanation. It's made worse by the fact that Addison just happens to be an awkwardly touchy-feely person and always feels compelled to grope someone. Oh, but then there's a twist at the end which further forbids them from being together, even though they're destined to be together. Yeah.

Darkside Sun was just a mess. The characters are awful, and the plot was lame. The world building makes no sense, and the romance was ridiculous.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.