A review by svnsn
Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis

dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

Did not enjoy this book.

The good things first:
I thought the premise was I interesting. Also, I'm not usually into fantasy books set in the real world, but I did surprisingly enjoy the story taking place in a small (real world) town.

Now for the things I did not enjoy:
The characters are incredibly dull. Anyone who could be interesting 
gets turned into a book zombie before I could get invested in them at all.
Also I think the way that many characters are handled is just how I imagine a cynical boomer would look at them. Hurrrdurrr teenagers don't respect their elders and only watch trash TV hurrrdurrr celebrities these days are trash.

The characters which I think? was supposed to be the main character, someone I should empathize with, was borderline abusive to the children around him,
like calling his students trash and whatnot. No wonder his students H A T E that guy


I was probably most disappointed about Emma. I thought she had so much potential. I teenage delinquent who her teachers look down upon and her parents don't care about that much. I thought the author wrote her so unlikable at first to later break with that expectation, show us that she is not a brat, maybe she'd even save the day! but no, she turns out to still be a brat, but this time a medieval one I guess.

Story structure wise, the same thing happens over and over and over again. At first it's interesting, but after, what, the 6th time? of someone 
of someone getting cursed by the book
I was over it.

The parts written as excerpts from the evil evil book were also mostly so unnecessary and boring. They really didn't add anything to the story, in my opinion.

Side note, but I feel like anytime there's was an ugly or fat female character the author went all out on describing her perceived flaws, while it was just brushed over for male characters with the same features.

Tl;Dr: Strong start, turned into a drag about halfway in. Repetitive structure and no characters to root for.