Reviewed by Raven on
They really mean it when they tell you not to judge a book by it’s cover. The cover for Coral & Bone is stunning, but the contents inside are sorely lacking. It feels like it was written by a tween to cater to a tween. The story isn’t bad, but it’s poorly executed. The author created two new worlds and added things to our current one, but the history that was made is thin, a lot of things are left open, and descriptions for the worlds are cliche and poor.
The characters are awful. The few that were interesting had roles so minor they aren’t worth even mentioning. The main character, Halen, was super annoying. I hated her name and just chose to call her Helen as I read. Her emotions were all over the place. I’ve had pregnancy hormone related mood swings that flip flopped less than she did. “No no! I can’t do it! I don’t want this! I am strong and confident! How dare they treat me like this! I can do this! I can’t do it!!!” All in the same chapter. She was a complete Mary Sue. Stronger than anyone else and her only “flaw” was that she couldn’t control her powers because of her anger from everyone lying to her, at least until she suddenly could control them after about 12 hours of training and trying. The characters were so hard to like, that you aren’t invested in what happens to them at all.
The story is poorly written, things happen because of convenience, not because they are woven into the thread of the plot properly. The story itself isn’t bad, but the writing kills it. It’s hard to get into, overly simplified to make it dull, and doesn’t have a hook to keep you in. The climax is spottily written, things happen too quickly, then slow, then pick up again in a blur of nonsense. The entire thing leaves you horribly disappointed.
I feel cruel, but perhaps honesty needs to be so from time to time. With dull, unremarkable characters and a story that tries too desperately to be epic and mysterious, this isn’t a book I really find to be all that entertaining. I can’t deny that it does get better towards the end, but just as it starts to shine, it’s tarnished by the horribly written climax. I can overlook the punctuation errors, being that I read a galley (however, other reviews make me think those weren’t repaired for the release) but I can’t overlook the fact that most of this book’s problems could’ve been repaired/avoided had there just been a story and flow editor or collection of beta readers before its actual release. This book had a chance to really shine, but it wasn’t polished nearly enough, leaving this diamond as an unrecognizable stone.
This review was originally posted on Fictively
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 13 July, 2015: Finished reading
- 13 July, 2015: Reviewed