A review by sapphicbookdragon
Moribund by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge
1.0
This book is "as emo as Kylo Ren," a direct quote from page 164. No, this novel is not particularly good. I wanted to like it, but I don't. Granted, I don't think I realized that it was another YA high school fantasy when I borrowed it from the library, that it's rife with the "my [parent(s)/guardian(s)] hid my special heritage and a secret world from me and lied to me all my life" trope and other clichés, but I decided to give it a chance because of the Faerie mythos and girly romance.
But Syl isn't Clary Fairchild or Harry Potter. I wanted to find another October Daye or Kate Daniels and found the equivalent of Twilight fan fiction instead.
It's told in present tense by alternating 1st-person narrators, which works well in some series in exploring character development and relationship/world-building (like the cute Once Upon a Con) but doesn't do anything special for Moribund/Circuit Fae here.
Too much text is wasted on corny internal dialog that isn't particularly clever, and the chapter intros of fake lyrics from the famous teenage performer are pretty awful. The story has its moments, but it has holes and lacks details and background which would furnish the world better. It feels underdeveloped and raw, like a first draft by a student.
What would make it better? I don't know, maybe stop saying the phrase "little minx" half a dozen times. It's annoying. There's also so much extraneous internal dialog, excessive teenage angst that is cringy; you could cut all that out. The "love" between characters develops too early and feels forced, unnatural. Several plot points were ridiculous, like renaming themselves with alliterative alternative identities worse than "Lois Lane" going "undercover" at their high school to discover another teenage fae's evil plot. I have issues with the concept of the Moribund itself, too. It seems like the author just liked the sound of that word and tried to throw some Matrix on it. It isn't well fleshed out.
The characters which are supposed to mean the most to the protagonists feel flat (i.e., Glamma), underdeveloped white noise, background static. I think flashback scenes with actual dialog, physical descriptions and in-depth interactions might have fixed that.
The ending was satisfying because I could finally remove this from my "currently reading" shelf.
But Syl isn't Clary Fairchild or Harry Potter. I wanted to find another October Daye or Kate Daniels and found the equivalent of Twilight fan fiction instead.
It's told in present tense by alternating 1st-person narrators, which works well in some series in exploring character development and relationship/world-building (like the cute Once Upon a Con) but doesn't do anything special for Moribund/Circuit Fae here.
Too much text is wasted on corny internal dialog that isn't particularly clever, and the chapter intros of fake lyrics from the famous teenage performer are pretty awful. The story has its moments, but it has holes and lacks details and background which would furnish the world better. It feels underdeveloped and raw, like a first draft by a student.
What would make it better? I don't know, maybe stop saying the phrase "little minx" half a dozen times. It's annoying. There's also so much extraneous internal dialog, excessive teenage angst that is cringy; you could cut all that out. The "love" between characters develops too early and feels forced, unnatural. Several plot points were ridiculous, like renaming themselves with alliterative alternative identities worse than "Lois Lane" going "undercover" at their high school to discover another teenage fae's evil plot. I have issues with the concept of the Moribund itself, too. It seems like the author just liked the sound of that word and tried to throw some Matrix on it. It isn't well fleshed out.
The characters which are supposed to mean the most to the protagonists feel flat (i.e., Glamma), underdeveloped white noise, background static. I think flashback scenes with actual dialog, physical descriptions and in-depth interactions might have fixed that.
The ending was satisfying because I could finally remove this from my "currently reading" shelf.