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A review by bassmanvoh
The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew
1.0
Popsugar Reading Challenge 2024: Prompt Nine - "A book by a deaf or hard-of-hearing author"
Weird. Weird. Weird.
Those were the only thoughts that kept going through my head throughout this unnecessarily long, drawn-out, and boring read. I didn’t mind the writing at first, but then realized that the author didn’t know how to use different similes or descriptive terms for ANYTHING happening in this novel.
If you can count on more than two fingers in an entire story where the author says, “She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding” or something along those lines, we have a problem.
On the actual story side of it all, I was just hoping until the very end that the magic system in the world was explained. The ideas of how the magic in the world intertwines with other things, for example, the characters going to a school to learn how to use the magic they have, are very good. It’s a familiar fantasy trope that the Harry Potter nerd inside me is most definitely looking for in a YA-ish fantasy read, but I was unfortunately let down. I have no clue about any of it. This leads to the next point that I was also hoping for: an explanation of why people were who they were. These surface-level characters were making some weird choices due to the people they were connected to, but nothing was explained about why they were connected to them or who they were before they were connected to them, except for the reasoning of “magic.”
I don't want to spoil too much for anyone who happens to see this and still wants to read, but there is a massive lack of connecting some dots that left me feeling a bit unsatisfied.
Weird. Weird. Weird.
Those were the only thoughts that kept going through my head throughout this unnecessarily long, drawn-out, and boring read. I didn’t mind the writing at first, but then realized that the author didn’t know how to use different similes or descriptive terms for ANYTHING happening in this novel.
If you can count on more than two fingers in an entire story where the author says, “She let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding” or something along those lines, we have a problem.
On the actual story side of it all, I was just hoping until the very end that the magic system in the world was explained. The ideas of how the magic in the world intertwines with other things, for example, the characters going to a school to learn how to use the magic they have, are very good. It’s a familiar fantasy trope that the Harry Potter nerd inside me is most definitely looking for in a YA-ish fantasy read, but I was unfortunately let down. I have no clue about any of it. This leads to the next point that I was also hoping for: an explanation of why people were who they were. These surface-level characters were making some weird choices due to the people they were connected to, but nothing was explained about why they were connected to them or who they were before they were connected to them, except for the reasoning of “magic.”
I don't want to spoil too much for anyone who happens to see this and still wants to read, but there is a massive lack of connecting some dots that left me feeling a bit unsatisfied.