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A review by teastime
Lord of Eternal Night by Ben Alderson
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
I don't think I can express just how disappointed I was in this book.
I am usually one to love any and all retellings, queer ones especially, as I know how they end most of the time and that gives me great comfort, however this time I could not keep the frown off of my face as I read. This was filled with poor writing and poor characters, this had the chance to be good and I suppose that is what frustrates me the most about this, but from the very first line I could tell that this was going to be a poor read.
Now, I am usually all for shitty books, sometimes some mind numbing vampire porn or a series that was started in the 2000s that have clearly not stood the test of time, or, honestly, some mafia macho man bs really hits the spot. So at first I thought that is what this is going to be. Which is fine and all, not the first retelling I've read that makes my brain just fill with whitenoise. And then I got just the smallest bit past the first chapter.
It was very obvious from the get go that the main character, Jak, was supposed to be quite intelligent but maybe a tad bit sheltered due to his up bringing. Instead it came across as though everyone should be incredibly surprised that he made it this far in life. He was written like the author was trying too hard to make him come across as smart, which instead had the opposite effect.
The base idea of the story was good - though I disagree that it should be marketed as a retelling and instead it has more similarities with a work that would be inspired by - but I'm afraid that was all that was good.
The sex scenes were mid, using the same language far too much and somehow making vampire sex boring and skippable, and there was inconsistency after inconsistency in both plot points and in characters. I felt little to no connection between the characters and their romance felt rushed. All of the 'twists' and reveals were easily seen from miles away and probably should have taken more build up. Grammatical errors and sentences that simply didn't make sense butchered any impact that some scenes attempted to have. If this were maybe one or two hundred pages more and with a better author I probably would have rated this much higher.
Originally I was going to consider continuing with the series, as my love for retellings holds out above my own taste often times, but if this is the out come of the other books in the series I don't see my self reading any other book from this author. I found this author originally from booktok and I think that some people should just stay readers.
I am usually one to love any and all retellings, queer ones especially, as I know how they end most of the time and that gives me great comfort, however this time I could not keep the frown off of my face as I read. This was filled with poor writing and poor characters, this had the chance to be good and I suppose that is what frustrates me the most about this, but from the very first line I could tell that this was going to be a poor read.
Now, I am usually all for shitty books, sometimes some mind numbing vampire porn or a series that was started in the 2000s that have clearly not stood the test of time, or, honestly, some mafia macho man bs really hits the spot. So at first I thought that is what this is going to be. Which is fine and all, not the first retelling I've read that makes my brain just fill with whitenoise. And then I got just the smallest bit past the first chapter.
It was very obvious from the get go that the main character, Jak, was supposed to be quite intelligent but maybe a tad bit sheltered due to his up bringing. Instead it came across as though everyone should be incredibly surprised that he made it this far in life. He was written like the author was trying too hard to make him come across as smart, which instead had the opposite effect.
The base idea of the story was good - though I disagree that it should be marketed as a retelling and instead it has more similarities with a work that would be inspired by - but I'm afraid that was all that was good.
The sex scenes were mid, using the same language far too much and somehow making vampire sex boring and skippable, and there was inconsistency after inconsistency in both plot points and in characters. I felt little to no connection between the characters and their romance felt rushed. All of the 'twists' and reveals were easily seen from miles away and probably should have taken more build up. Grammatical errors and sentences that simply didn't make sense butchered any impact that some scenes attempted to have. If this were maybe one or two hundred pages more and with a better author I probably would have rated this much higher.
Originally I was going to consider continuing with the series, as my love for retellings holds out above my own taste often times, but if this is the out come of the other books in the series I don't see my self reading any other book from this author. I found this author originally from booktok and I think that some people should just stay readers.