The Graces by Laure Eve

The Graces (The Graces, #1)

by Laure Eve

Picked for BBC Radio 2's Book Club

Everyone said the Graces were witches.
They moved through the corridors like sleek fish, ripples in their wake. Stares followed their backs and their hair.
They had friends, but they were just distractions. They were waiting for someone different.
All I had to do was show them that person was me.

Like everyone else in her town, River is obsessed with the Graces, attracted by their glamour and apparent ability to weave magic. But are they really what they seem? And are they more dangerous than they let on?

This beautifully-written thriller will grip you from its very first page.

Reviewed by Silvara on

2 of 5 stars

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I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I really wanted to like this book. And I did like some parts of it. But River felt a little too stalker-y, and she pretty much re-made herself in the image she thought was most likely to get her what she wanted.

It was apparent early on that River is broken. And soon after she gets in with the Graces, you realize that all of the Graces are broken too. All of them are good at hiding it, and all are broken in different ways. I liked Summer the best of all the characters. She was the most human one of them, and behaved in the most believable ways.

The beginning was the best part of the book. The way the characters were described, the hints of mystery surrounding the Graces. All of it drew me in and I wanted to know more. But then it bogged down. It got really slow in the middle, and just dragged. The ending was fairly predictable, based on what happened during the book. I'm a little bit curious as to what will happen in the next book, but this one dragged so much I'm not sure if I want to read the next one at this point.

I really felt bad for River in the beginning. I hoped she'd be able to make friends with Summer, Fenrin and Thalia. And then towards the middle of the book all that changed. I didn't really like River as a person much, and I started felling bad for Summer and Fenrin.

Fenrin presents himself at school as the classic bad boy. Gorgeous and with a different girl every week. River falls into insta-lust and decides that she is the girl he's been waiting for, and once she has him he'll never stray. But she ignores signs and clues, doesn't really get to know HIM, just imagines his personality.

Summer makes friends with River, and later they end up as best friends. But again, River doesn't really listen to what is going on or pay attention to what her eyes are telling her. She has an ideal for both Summer and Fenrin, and that's mostly all she sees. And then when something bad happens in the book, and things start to blow up, she's taken by complete surprise. Everything is about her and how it's affecting her. She's not really thinking about how it affects the Graces, unless it is an off-shoot of how it's screwed up her own life.

This was very much a teen angst fest, which is not usually a type of book I would pick up. I may or may not read the next book, it depends on what characters it centers around. And if River wises up at all. If I do read it, it'll be a library read, I can't see buying it after not liking the first book much.

This review was originally posted on Fantasy of the Silver Dragon

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 14 July, 2016: Finished reading
  • 14 July, 2016: Reviewed