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A review by breezie_reads
The Waning by Wunmi Aramiji
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.0
I really wanted to rate this higher and I wish I enjoyed it more. I didn't entirely dislike this, I was just bored most of the time and was disinterested in the characters, their relationships, and the plot. I loved the premise of the book and pre-ordered it the same day I heard about it, but the execution was lacking to me and it was such a disappointment when I couldn't get myself invested like I was hoping to be.
I hate coming in to a self-published book and basing any rating or review off of editing because I understand how expensive it is and how difficult it is to edit your own work and find what needs to be fixed, but I do wish this was read through at least one more time by literally anyone and edited a little better. Maybe if it was I would have been more invested and interested. There were entire words missing from the middle of sentences, punctuation was missing when it would have been beneficial to have it present, pronouns and names were mixed up causing confusion about what you missed between that paragraph and this one, phrases were repeated at the beginning and end of the same sentences, transitions were jumbled together or missing altogether, and the descriptions were too wordy and almost always contradictory. How can you walk tepidly but joyously? Move slowly but quickly? Plant stems were described as looking like plant stems. We also don't need to have the entire person described in explicit detail if we're never going to see them again and they're an unimportant character beyond the one scene they show up in.
As a fast reader, these editing mistakes made it difficult to fully understand and lose myself in the writing because I kept having to go back and reread sentences and paragraphs to mentally fix them to make it all make more sense. Even trying to read a little slower didn't help much because you're expecting a word to be there and it isn't, or you know you're talking about this person when suddenly this other character's name is there and now the roles are reversed, but only for a second because now this original character is somehow telported to another area and they're doing something different than what they were doing at the beginning of the paragraph.
The pacing was also really off. It seemed as if the author was trying to make this a fast-paced fantasy but everything just ended up feeling really rushed and awkward. Which leads back into the missing transitions I was talking about earlier.
This dragged for me and I ended up hurrying up to finish it just so I didn't have to worry about it anymore. Could I have DNF'd it? Of course. But there was always hope in me that this book would live up its potential, so I sat through it. There is a lot of potential here, but it read more as a draft if a book than an finished product. If it was ever reedited I would love to give it another chance.
I hate coming in to a self-published book and basing any rating or review off of editing because I understand how expensive it is and how difficult it is to edit your own work and find what needs to be fixed, but I do wish this was read through at least one more time by literally anyone and edited a little better. Maybe if it was I would have been more invested and interested. There were entire words missing from the middle of sentences, punctuation was missing when it would have been beneficial to have it present, pronouns and names were mixed up causing confusion about what you missed between that paragraph and this one, phrases were repeated at the beginning and end of the same sentences, transitions were jumbled together or missing altogether, and the descriptions were too wordy and almost always contradictory. How can you walk tepidly but joyously? Move slowly but quickly? Plant stems were described as looking like plant stems. We also don't need to have the entire person described in explicit detail if we're never going to see them again and they're an unimportant character beyond the one scene they show up in.
As a fast reader, these editing mistakes made it difficult to fully understand and lose myself in the writing because I kept having to go back and reread sentences and paragraphs to mentally fix them to make it all make more sense. Even trying to read a little slower didn't help much because you're expecting a word to be there and it isn't, or you know you're talking about this person when suddenly this other character's name is there and now the roles are reversed, but only for a second because now this original character is somehow telported to another area and they're doing something different than what they were doing at the beginning of the paragraph.
The pacing was also really off. It seemed as if the author was trying to make this a fast-paced fantasy but everything just ended up feeling really rushed and awkward. Which leads back into the missing transitions I was talking about earlier.
This dragged for me and I ended up hurrying up to finish it just so I didn't have to worry about it anymore. Could I have DNF'd it? Of course. But there was always hope in me that this book would live up its potential, so I sat through it. There is a lot of potential here, but it read more as a draft if a book than an finished product. If it was ever reedited I would love to give it another chance.