A review by etinney
Toxic Heart by Theo Lawrence
3.0
3 out of 5 stars
The beginning of this book was probably 2.5 stars, but luckily it redeemed itself.
Aria is an idiot. Throughout the whole novel, she did not see the consequences of her wishful thinking. She was immature and thought that everything would just work out. She was also extremely selfish in her dealings with other characters, especially with Hunter. She did not seem to understand that he had more important things to do than to be in a relationship with her.
Hunter was also extremely rude to Aria. He excluded her from his plans for no reason and was just an annoying character overall. I think Lawrence was trying too hard to set up the love triangle between Hunter and Turk. If you make Hunter annoying, Turk looks a lot better. Although Turk is the only consistently good character in the novel, I would prefer that Turk and Aria remain friends. The flirting seems very forced.
In addition to Hunter, Shannon is just a horrible person for absolutely no reason. I understand that she wouldn't have trusted Aria right away, but the insults were just unnecessary. It was obvious that her character was being set up for growth, but this just made the change unbelievable.
With the plot, most of it was fairly good. There was action and betrayal and whatever. However, a lot of points were not very believable, especially with the stand-offs between the "good" and "bad" guys. There was the cliche "I am going to tell you all of my plans so that the author can stall time before you kill me", especially in the battle between Elissa and the mystics. She could have easily killed all of them as soon as they walked in, yet there had to be a 2 page explanation of how she was power-hungry.
Besides these things, the story was fairly good, and the ending was definitely the best way it could have been handled. Aria finally grew up and realized that she was not fighting for her relationship. Thank god. She broke up with Hunter, who became extremely whiny at the end of the story.
I think I will continue on with the series, but I am not super excited for it.
The beginning of this book was probably 2.5 stars, but luckily it redeemed itself.
Aria is an idiot. Throughout the whole novel, she did not see the consequences of her wishful thinking. She was immature and thought that everything would just work out. She was also extremely selfish in her dealings with other characters, especially with Hunter. She did not seem to understand that he had more important things to do than to be in a relationship with her.
Hunter was also extremely rude to Aria. He excluded her from his plans for no reason and was just an annoying character overall. I think Lawrence was trying too hard to set up the love triangle between Hunter and Turk. If you make Hunter annoying, Turk looks a lot better. Although Turk is the only consistently good character in the novel, I would prefer that Turk and Aria remain friends. The flirting seems very forced.
In addition to Hunter, Shannon is just a horrible person for absolutely no reason. I understand that she wouldn't have trusted Aria right away, but the insults were just unnecessary. It was obvious that her character was being set up for growth, but this just made the change unbelievable.
With the plot, most of it was fairly good. There was action and betrayal and whatever. However, a lot of points were not very believable, especially with the stand-offs between the "good" and "bad" guys. There was the cliche "I am going to tell you all of my plans so that the author can stall time before you kill me", especially in the battle between Elissa and the mystics. She could have easily killed all of them as soon as they walked in, yet there had to be a 2 page explanation of how she was power-hungry.
Besides these things, the story was fairly good, and the ending was definitely the best way it could have been handled. Aria finally grew up and realized that she was not fighting for her relationship. Thank god. She broke up with Hunter, who became extremely whiny at the end of the story.
I think I will continue on with the series, but I am not super excited for it.