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A review by ireadthebooks
Lark by Erica Cope
Did not finish book.
I hate to DNF a book just because it’s boring … but sometimes you have to do it. Lark is nothing special, and the all too familiar plot of ” teenage girl discovers she’s literally a faerie princess” was bland and tired. If you’re going to do something that has been done fifty times before, you have to bring something new to the table, and Cope failed to do that. The blurb mentions strange dreams, as if they’re something that’s happening to Mia before the accident, but I got through a solid third of this book and no mention of dreams at all. The magical hot boy meets mortal girl and there’s a giant age difference trope is at play, and it’s gets creepy. At first, I thought that maybe Greyson would end up being Mia’s dad, then maybe her brother, to explain why he wouldn’t look at her romantically. Then he presents himself as a viable romantic candidate and tells Mia that he’s watched her grow up … and then he lists all of her major life events … just like a PARENT would. It was super creepy.
I could’ve got past all that and finished the book were it not for the writing. The author’s writing style was stilted from page 1. For example, sometimes the author will use contractions and sometimes the author will use “it is” or “I am” which sound more formal. If this had been a conscious decision to make Grey sound more formal (because to quote Mia, “You are freakin’ 200-years-old!”) and make Mia sound more modern, it would’ve worked. Both characters speech patterns fluctuate wildly and when combined with an over-reliance on “to be” variations, the overall writing style did not impress me. I know this is a bit petty, but it distracted me over and over. The grammatical structure of dialogue should not distract your reader from what the characters are saying.
Self-publishing is an excellent tool for authors, but in my absolutely amateur opinion as a reader and a writer, self-pubbing authors should be even MORE paranoid to have more critique partners and readers go over their work before putting it up for sale. If you don’t have the benefit of a professional editor, the impetus is on the author to make sure they’re exposing their work to the opinino of someone who isn’t afraid to hurt their feelings and make them start over.
I could’ve got past all that and finished the book were it not for the writing. The author’s writing style was stilted from page 1. For example, sometimes the author will use contractions and sometimes the author will use “it is” or “I am” which sound more formal. If this had been a conscious decision to make Grey sound more formal (because to quote Mia, “You are freakin’ 200-years-old!”) and make Mia sound more modern, it would’ve worked. Both characters speech patterns fluctuate wildly and when combined with an over-reliance on “to be” variations, the overall writing style did not impress me. I know this is a bit petty, but it distracted me over and over. The grammatical structure of dialogue should not distract your reader from what the characters are saying.
Self-publishing is an excellent tool for authors, but in my absolutely amateur opinion as a reader and a writer, self-pubbing authors should be even MORE paranoid to have more critique partners and readers go over their work before putting it up for sale. If you don’t have the benefit of a professional editor, the impetus is on the author to make sure they’re exposing their work to the opinino of someone who isn’t afraid to hurt their feelings and make them start over.