lifeinthebooklane's review
3.0
I'm rating this as 3.5 stars. Please note that I am using the Goodreads rating system of 3 stars being "liked" and 4 as "really liked".
Eternal Nightmare is a well written and entertaining read, a dark and twisty retelling of Sleeping Beauty, with a dash of Romeo and Juliet for good measure. I did struggle with the flashback/flashforward aspect at first as I hadn't had chance to develop an understanding of the world and it's characters. This left me feeling a little confused and lost at times though once I'd reached about 20%, and had experienced enough of Lucy in the past, I felt the story coming together more.
Whilst Lucy's passiveness occasionally irritated me I did still find it fitted both her upbringing and character. As the book progresses we do see her growing more of a backbone, which was great. I love to see characters grow and develop.
Even though there were times when I really didn't understand what was happening, particularly in the 'present' dream scenes, I still found the story engaging. I also felt that it was a deliberate technique employed by the author. Not only does it mean we don't get an unwieldy information dump, it allowed me to appreciate Lucy's own sense of confusion, frustration and weariness. Details and clues are slowly drip fed to us at a perfect pace, not too quick so as to bombard and not so slow that boredom or irritation sets in.
There were a few occasions when I felt the pace could have been a little quicker, but that might just have been me wanting to get to the HEA, which was great by the way!
Eternal Nightmare is a well written and entertaining read, a dark and twisty retelling of Sleeping Beauty, with a dash of Romeo and Juliet for good measure. I did struggle with the flashback/flashforward aspect at first as I hadn't had chance to develop an understanding of the world and it's characters. This left me feeling a little confused and lost at times though once I'd reached about 20%, and had experienced enough of Lucy in the past, I felt the story coming together more.
Whilst Lucy's passiveness occasionally irritated me I did still find it fitted both her upbringing and character. As the book progresses we do see her growing more of a backbone, which was great. I love to see characters grow and develop.
Even though there were times when I really didn't understand what was happening, particularly in the 'present' dream scenes, I still found the story engaging. I also felt that it was a deliberate technique employed by the author. Not only does it mean we don't get an unwieldy information dump, it allowed me to appreciate Lucy's own sense of confusion, frustration and weariness. Details and clues are slowly drip fed to us at a perfect pace, not too quick so as to bombard and not so slow that boredom or irritation sets in.
There were a few occasions when I felt the pace could have been a little quicker, but that might just have been me wanting to get to the HEA, which was great by the way!
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