A review by lynseyisreading
Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison
3.0
Slow starter
This is the first book in The Hollows series. I had been pre-warned by several different people that it was a slow-starter, but that the series gets better and better. Well, they weren't kidding! If it wasn't for my faith that it would, in fact, get better, I may not have got through the first 100 pages. It was such a slow start. The writing style doesn't flow, I kept stumbling back and forth and having to re-read bits. There is an inordinate amount of info-dumps—Harrison clearly has a very distinct world full of weird creatures and a society fully aware of supernaturals, and she wants to tell you about the whole thing all at once—and yet at other times she will mention something matter-of-factly, that you have absolutely no clue what she's talking about at all.
However, it did get better. I feel like perhaps this book is the mountain which you have to climb to get to the good stuff. You have to pay the reading piper for the privilege by slogging your way through about eight incredibly tedious chapters. (In fact, there was an escape-type scene about 8 chapters in, and I couldn't help thinking she should have started the book there, and just referenced everything that happened before that in retrospect, Sort of a "it all started when I quit my job" thing). Also, I don't feel like I know much about leading lady Rachel yet. She was kind of busy in this book running for her life, granted, but I couldn't really tell you much about her.
Anyway, onto what I did like, which can almost be summed up in a word: Jenks! I love him. He's a 4-inch tall pixy and he just completely rescued this book for me. His dialogue is hilarious and I just can't wait to see more of him.
We met a villain (I think) whose motives I'm not really sure on at the moment, so I want to find out more on him. There's a potential love interest character as well, but he leaves me a bit cold to be honest. Rachel's vampire room-mate is also up to something, so I want to know more about that. And the guy that lives over the road... yeah, something fishy about him, too, I reckon.
So it seems quite a few little seeds of intrigue have been carefully planted despite my reservations, which will make me pick up the next one. Let's hope it starts a heck of a lot faster than this one did!
(Edit: Two years later... This review is now hilarious to me considering this is now one of my all-time favourite series (I'm at book 11 now). So I guess I can safely confirm it does get better! I stand by my review, however, because that's how I felt at the time).
This is the first book in The Hollows series. I had been pre-warned by several different people that it was a slow-starter, but that the series gets better and better. Well, they weren't kidding! If it wasn't for my faith that it would, in fact, get better, I may not have got through the first 100 pages. It was such a slow start. The writing style doesn't flow, I kept stumbling back and forth and having to re-read bits. There is an inordinate amount of info-dumps—Harrison clearly has a very distinct world full of weird creatures and a society fully aware of supernaturals, and she wants to tell you about the whole thing all at once—and yet at other times she will mention something matter-of-factly, that you have absolutely no clue what she's talking about at all.
However, it did get better. I feel like perhaps this book is the mountain which you have to climb to get to the good stuff. You have to pay the reading piper for the privilege by slogging your way through about eight incredibly tedious chapters. (In fact, there was an escape-type scene about 8 chapters in, and I couldn't help thinking she should have started the book there, and just referenced everything that happened before that in retrospect, Sort of a "it all started when I quit my job" thing). Also, I don't feel like I know much about leading lady Rachel yet. She was kind of busy in this book running for her life, granted, but I couldn't really tell you much about her.
Anyway, onto what I did like, which can almost be summed up in a word: Jenks! I love him. He's a 4-inch tall pixy and he just completely rescued this book for me. His dialogue is hilarious and I just can't wait to see more of him.
We met a villain (I think) whose motives I'm not really sure on at the moment, so I want to find out more on him. There's a potential love interest character as well, but he leaves me a bit cold to be honest. Rachel's vampire room-mate is also up to something, so I want to know more about that. And the guy that lives over the road... yeah, something fishy about him, too, I reckon.
So it seems quite a few little seeds of intrigue have been carefully planted despite my reservations, which will make me pick up the next one. Let's hope it starts a heck of a lot faster than this one did!
(Edit: Two years later... This review is now hilarious to me considering this is now one of my all-time favourite series (I'm at book 11 now). So I guess I can safely confirm it does get better! I stand by my review, however, because that's how I felt at the time).