Scan barcode
A review by myzanm
Trouble Comes in Threes by M.A. Church
2.0
This should have been a hit with me. I love shifters, I don't mind insta-mate, the plot sounded somewhat original and ménage is periodically my go to genre.
This book just didn't do it for me.
I read the whole shebang, but there were so many things that rubbed me the wrong way that I almost dropped the book. I persisted, hoping it would get better. (It rarely does...) Parts of the story was good, but the pacing was bumpy. The first half was actually almost glacial.... It was so boring I actually fell asleep at one time (ok it was night, but I rarely fall asleep while reading). The slow telling was interspersed with bouts of action, more so in the last fourth of the book than in the first 3/4.
A lot was told. I wish more had been showed. There was a lot of unnecessary explanations. The dialouge felt stilted and I had a hard time connecting with the characters. I also had a hard time picturing domesticated cats as scary, vicious, lethal creatures. (I'm sure my daughter could. She swears they are evil creatures after a clawing on her hand when she was 9.) Still they all acted like they would be just as lethal as a panther. Especially Keith.
I just couldn't stand the change of POV. While having several different voices in a story is not normally something that rises my hackles, but it was so poorly executed in this story that it kept jolting me out of the story. Why on earth was Keith's parts told in first person when Tal's and Dolf's were told in 3rd person??? And there was no distinction in voice between the two shifters. It just made the whole thing confusing. I sometime had to go back to get who was saying or doing something.
I can see why a lot of people loved this story, but I guess I'm just too anal retentive about things like this to shut the (IMO) bad parts out and just go with the flow and enjoy myself despite the negative.
This book just didn't do it for me.
I read the whole shebang, but there were so many things that rubbed me the wrong way that I almost dropped the book. I persisted, hoping it would get better. (It rarely does...) Parts of the story was good, but the pacing was bumpy. The first half was actually almost glacial.... It was so boring I actually fell asleep at one time (ok it was night, but I rarely fall asleep while reading). The slow telling was interspersed with bouts of action, more so in the last fourth of the book than in the first 3/4.
A lot was told. I wish more had been showed. There was a lot of unnecessary explanations. The dialouge felt stilted and I had a hard time connecting with the characters. I also had a hard time picturing domesticated cats as scary, vicious, lethal creatures. (I'm sure my daughter could. She swears they are evil creatures after a clawing on her hand when she was 9.) Still they all acted like they would be just as lethal as a panther. Especially Keith.
I just couldn't stand the change of POV. While having several different voices in a story is not normally something that rises my hackles, but it was so poorly executed in this story that it kept jolting me out of the story. Why on earth was Keith's parts told in first person when Tal's and Dolf's were told in 3rd person??? And there was no distinction in voice between the two shifters. It just made the whole thing confusing. I sometime had to go back to get who was saying or doing something.
I can see why a lot of people loved this story, but I guess I'm just too anal retentive about things like this to shut the (IMO) bad parts out and just go with the flow and enjoy myself despite the negative.