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A review by a_ab
Beginner's Luck by Kate Clayborn
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Hmmm. I guess, my dominant response to this book is "I sort of liked it, but..."
I mostly liked the writing — it was competent and engaging, but there are these dramatic endings to scenes and chapters which annoyed me to no end. They didn't fit with the rest of the text stylistically and they skipped right over pathos into pompous pretense.
I kind of liked Kit, but her character had inconsistencies which had little to do with human complexity, and instead seemed like the author had no idea what she was talking about — for example, the whole academia setup didn't ring true to me despite my longtime familiarity with the academic environments.
It felt like the situations described summed up in my mind to a completely different interpretation and outcomes than the author had given them, so I was constantly running into this sense of slight cognitive dissonance.
Ben had some likable traits, but I can't say that I liked him much as a person, or as a long-term partner for Kit, who needs decency and stability above all else. Ben has too many unresolved issues, some of them violence-related, which is always such a keg of gunpowder to base a relationship on. And I felt like Kit was more drawn to his family than to him. While for him it was all about the "magic sex". That was another 'but': I didn't see much reason for the relationship aside from sexual attraction — the "love" the characters spoke about and claimed to feel didn't seem genuine based on the interactions they had, so it was another reason for the cognitive dissonance.
I did like the secondary characters a lot, but they are just rough sketches, since the book is so focused on the main couple.
I mostly liked the writing — it was competent and engaging, but there are these dramatic endings to scenes and chapters which annoyed me to no end. They didn't fit with the rest of the text stylistically and they skipped right over pathos into pompous pretense.
I kind of liked Kit, but her character had inconsistencies which had little to do with human complexity, and instead seemed like the author had no idea what she was talking about — for example, the whole academia setup didn't ring true to me despite my longtime familiarity with the academic environments.
It felt like the situations described summed up in my mind to a completely different interpretation and outcomes than the author had given them, so I was constantly running into this sense of slight cognitive dissonance.
Ben had some likable traits, but I can't say that I liked him much as a person, or as a long-term partner for Kit, who needs decency and stability above all else. Ben has too many unresolved issues, some of them violence-related, which is always such a keg of gunpowder to base a relationship on. And I felt like Kit was more drawn to his family than to him. While for him it was all about the "magic sex". That was another 'but': I didn't see much reason for the relationship aside from sexual attraction — the "love" the characters spoke about and claimed to feel didn't seem genuine based on the interactions they had, so it was another reason for the cognitive dissonance.
I did like the secondary characters a lot, but they are just rough sketches, since the book is so focused on the main couple.