cuppa_curiositea's review
3.0
2.5-3 stars
Lots of interesting ideas introduced but not a lot of payoff, unfortunately. 90% of this book is a very normal romance story. Then some fantasy is sprinkled in about halfway through, and it felt very out of place and pointless to the story for a long time. Then it suddenly becomes SUPER important when we get to the BIG twist at the end, so I was left feeling like we had very little setup for a dramatic "gotchya!" moment. The last two chapters (or, I guess, the last chapter and the epilogue) should have been a much more significant part of the book. The majority of the interesting stuff happens in those chapters, but we get a diluted summary of what could have been a really awesome arch of character development instead. At least half of this book could have easily been dedicated just to those last events, and it would have been much more interesting and less mundane. This is described as a "modern gothic," but again, the truly dark topics aren't explored until the end of the novel. Up until then, the "darkest" moments that we get are really caricaturized representations of depression.
Lots of interesting ideas introduced but not a lot of payoff, unfortunately. 90% of this book is a very normal romance story. Then some fantasy is sprinkled in about halfway through, and it felt very out of place and pointless to the story for a long time. Then it suddenly becomes SUPER important when we get to the BIG twist at the end, so I was left feeling like we had very little setup for a dramatic "gotchya!" moment. The last two chapters (or, I guess, the last chapter and the epilogue) should have been a much more significant part of the book. The majority of the interesting stuff happens in those chapters, but we get a diluted summary of what could have been a really awesome arch of character development instead. At least half of this book could have easily been dedicated just to those last events, and it would have been much more interesting and less mundane. This is described as a "modern gothic," but again, the truly dark topics aren't explored until the end of the novel. Up until then, the "darkest" moments that we get are really caricaturized representations of depression.
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