A review by leann_ange
Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn
3.0
This is quite possible the slowest book by Quinn that I've read thus far, but it also had the least lazy ending I've read by her, so I have mixed feeling about how to rate it.
As always, I love the scenarios Quinn sets up, and as always, I'm a little disappointed with the simplicity of how the situation came to be as it is. (Or the lack of any real explanation.) This time there's an ambiguous situation of accidental deals with the devil, but it still felt lackluster in it's reveal. However, explanation aside, the girl who must kill roughly once a year while stealing the bodies of her victims after tricking them to more or less sell their souls was a pretty interesting situation. The added problem of the protagonist having no memories of her deal, body hopping, or anything else added to the story.
Also a positive, the ending didn't feel like a total cop out. I could have used a little more detail in the final confrontation, but it at least matched how a lot of other scenes in the book are described. Plus, while it is the final confrontation, what felt like the real climax came shortly before. I think this is officially the first Quinn book I read that doesn't summarize its climax after the fact.
As for the negatives, this book is slow. Shockingly so, considering it involves an early scene of one girl carving out and eating another's heart. I mostly blame this on the protagonist, who only feels truly proactive a few times in the book. For most of the story, even if she said she was looking for clues, it felt like she was going about her daily life and waiting for people to just trigger the right memories. This is also two out of three Quinn books I've read now where there wouldn't even be a mystery if something didn't happen to the protagonist's memory, which gave a sense of repetition.
Seriously, though. It isn't until past the half-way point that the protagonist actually starts trying to track down people who might know anything about her past--or stops running from the guy who really obviously knows the whole situation. Most of the mystery isn't really SOLVED by her. She just happens to remember the right details in a compelling order.
As always, I love the scenarios Quinn sets up, and as always, I'm a little disappointed with the simplicity of how the situation came to be as it is. (Or the lack of any real explanation.) This time there's an ambiguous situation of accidental deals with the devil, but it still felt lackluster in it's reveal. However, explanation aside, the girl who must kill roughly once a year while stealing the bodies of her victims after tricking them to more or less sell their souls was a pretty interesting situation. The added problem of the protagonist having no memories of her deal, body hopping, or anything else added to the story.
Also a positive, the ending didn't feel like a total cop out. I could have used a little more detail in the final confrontation, but it at least matched how a lot of other scenes in the book are described. Plus, while it is the final confrontation, what felt like the real climax came shortly before. I think this is officially the first Quinn book I read that doesn't summarize its climax after the fact.
As for the negatives, this book is slow. Shockingly so, considering it involves an early scene of one girl carving out and eating another's heart. I mostly blame this on the protagonist, who only feels truly proactive a few times in the book. For most of the story, even if she said she was looking for clues, it felt like she was going about her daily life and waiting for people to just trigger the right memories. This is also two out of three Quinn books I've read now where there wouldn't even be a mystery if something didn't happen to the protagonist's memory, which gave a sense of repetition.
Seriously, though. It isn't until past the half-way point that the protagonist actually starts trying to track down people who might know anything about her past--or stops running from the guy who really obviously knows the whole situation. Most of the mystery isn't really SOLVED by her. She just happens to remember the right details in a compelling order.