Reviewed by nannah on
DNF @ 8%
The prose is lovely, the atmosphere is great and skillfully built, and the setup is wonderfully done.
But I'm just not sure if I want to keep reading. There are just too many things that rubbed me the wrong way.
For one, the names. WOW, I think this book set a record for most needless names thrown in the first chapter. What was it, 18? Actually I'll count them. Hazel, Ben, Jack, Lloyd, Leonie, Doris, Megan, Molly, Liz, Martin, Namiya, Stephen, Franklin, Carter, Robbie, Jenny, Rob, and Tom. That's 18 names. Only a few of them actually had relevance. The rest were there for . . . purple prose using names instead of adjectives?
No. 2: the MC's brother is gay, and her friend is black. I mean, sure, that's great representation! But as far as I know from Holly Black's books (ok I've only read The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, this seems to be the trend. The MC is white and straight with heaps of angst, and the side characters are plugged in for diversity (and aren't really treated that well . . .). Such as gay people using online dating apps are made fun of. Because yeah . . . it's so easy for gay/bi/pan people to find dates outside of online apps with all the blatant homophobia in society . . .
No. 3: the cringe-worthy line that made me put down the book: "She was proud of the ways they were different from other people's parents; they'd raised her to be. 'Normal people,' they'd say with a shudder. 'Normal people think they're happy, but that's because they're too dumb to know any different.'
It feels like this is the "aesthetic" of Holly Black's writing, and I'm not sure I want to go through it.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 4 August, 2015: Finished reading
- 4 August, 2015: Reviewed