Scan barcode
A review by johnlynchbooks
Burn the Dark by S.A. Hunt
3.0
S.A. Hunt and Tor come at you with a book that was described as The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets Supernatural. I don’t care about supernatural, but as soon as you say Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, you’ve got my attention.
For me, this was a book that had excellent potential, but the author wasn’t able to capitalize on it. The story was interesting, enough so that when I wanted to quit, I soldiered on. The protagonist was cool, I enjoy strong female characters, so that was a plus. The pacing of the novel felt off. It started off full speed, but quickly became bogged down before picking back up for the conclusion.
I also had a problem with the dialogue, it felt off. One character spoke a line with a noticeable speech issue, and the book said as much immediately following the Dialogue, only to have the same character speaking perfect english from here on out. Why bother putting that in there to begin with if only to drop it. Other characters are said to talk in southern accents, and then when the dialogue comes in sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. I normally wouldn’t care but it felt jarring to me.
Lastly, there was just something about the prose that frequently had me scratching my head. Words and sounds were used to describe things that just didn’t make sense.
At the end of the day, I felt this was a book with promise that wasn’t quite executed on. The story itself had its hooks in me enough to keep me going, but the execution of it I found lacking. This wasn’t for me, but if the premise sounds cool to you, is still say give it a shot.
2.5 rounded to 3 for goodreads
For me, this was a book that had excellent potential, but the author wasn’t able to capitalize on it. The story was interesting, enough so that when I wanted to quit, I soldiered on. The protagonist was cool, I enjoy strong female characters, so that was a plus. The pacing of the novel felt off. It started off full speed, but quickly became bogged down before picking back up for the conclusion.
I also had a problem with the dialogue, it felt off. One character spoke a line with a noticeable speech issue, and the book said as much immediately following the Dialogue, only to have the same character speaking perfect english from here on out. Why bother putting that in there to begin with if only to drop it. Other characters are said to talk in southern accents, and then when the dialogue comes in sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. I normally wouldn’t care but it felt jarring to me.
Lastly, there was just something about the prose that frequently had me scratching my head. Words and sounds were used to describe things that just didn’t make sense.
At the end of the day, I felt this was a book with promise that wasn’t quite executed on. The story itself had its hooks in me enough to keep me going, but the execution of it I found lacking. This wasn’t for me, but if the premise sounds cool to you, is still say give it a shot.
2.5 rounded to 3 for goodreads