A review by novelheartbeat
The Almost Girl by Amalie Howard

Did not finish book.

At first I liked the concept, but I lost interest in this one. I made it to page 135 before I had to put it down. The pace was quite painful and just dragged along and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I had some issues with it, but it wasn’t anything major. The book wasn’t terrible, but overall I just felt “meh” about it. I was disappointed in the world building to say the least – it had such a great concept but the delivery fell flat. There was practically no world building, and the little snippets we do get were hard to piece together and I had trouble grasping the world that Howard was trying to create. Some of the explanations made absolutely no sense and I really had no clue where she was trying to go with it. Here’s an example:

“Guns won’t kill Vectors. They’re programmed to dodge the trajectory of bullets. Something about the sound of the metal, I think. The only way to kill them is a sharp blow to the head or severing the spinal column.”
“But people are much slower than bullets,” Caden argues.
“But we’re less noticeable. That’s our advantage over them. By the first bullet, they know where you are. If you miss, you’re dead. It’s a small window, but useable. It’s all about speed, flexibility and unpredictability. With a knife or a sword, you have to get in real close, but once you strike true, they go down.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the difference between that and a gun?” Caden asks.
“Like I said, Vectors can hear bullets coming a mile away. Arrows are a lot quieter.”

Um. What?

I also didn’t care for and couldn’t connect to Riven. She was practically a robot! I understand there was reason for it – she had seen a lot of death and killing – but it just didn’t work for me. I didn’t care for any of the other characters, either. They were all pretty bland and I didn’t get much feeling from any of it. I just didn’t care.

This review was originally posted on Novel Heartbeat.