A review by deservingporcupine
The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner

3.0

This was an original, compelling story. Definitely a book that I would recommend to students. However, the writing was the embodiment of angsty trying too hard. From the ‘too-cool-for-school’ pop culture, Indy movie/band name dropping to the passages detailing the existential philosophy of watching passing trains, there was a lot of cringing for me here. (Seriously, one more YA novel with characters talking about how starlight is just the light from dead stars ...) And the romance just felt wrong — I wish very much the relationship had been platonic, because other than the tortured descriptions of how magical the line of a certain character’s jaw was as the sun set, there wasn’t much chemistry, and some important moments felt overshadowed. That said, I cried at all the right places, and felt that the author wrote this with best intentions.