A review by crownoflaurel
City of Night, by Michelle West
1.0
I'll probably never finish this one, so I'll just mark it here. First grievance--they didn't list it as being the second book in a series ("A House Wars Novel" means to me it takes place within a certain world, but isn't necessarily a consecutive book in a series). So, that made it hard, from the very start, to understand the story & characters.
Secondly--this book starts with a really interesting tale about a boy seeking revenge. The style of the writing was intriguing, slightly detached, and felt very much like a short story, and it wasn't truely resolved. Since it didn't resemble the book's description, I was a bit confused, but still enjoyed it.
But then it merged into the main story. And this boy became a nothing background character in a typical orphan kids' street gang, with somebody else as the main protagonist. And the story completely stalled out--all it seemed to be was this other character going back and forth between places, without ever a good reason for doing why, or moving the story forward. Pretty mundane stuff; the threat was not threatening, and the writing became dull.
And after the initial interesting start, it was very flat. And made me fall asleep while reading it. Which I don't usually do, as a rule. (And I'm a fast reader, so I should have been able to finish it quickly, and I couldn't do that, either.)
Secondly--this book starts with a really interesting tale about a boy seeking revenge. The style of the writing was intriguing, slightly detached, and felt very much like a short story, and it wasn't truely resolved. Since it didn't resemble the book's description, I was a bit confused, but still enjoyed it.
But then it merged into the main story. And this boy became a nothing background character in a typical orphan kids' street gang, with somebody else as the main protagonist. And the story completely stalled out--all it seemed to be was this other character going back and forth between places, without ever a good reason for doing why, or moving the story forward. Pretty mundane stuff; the threat was not threatening, and the writing became dull.
And after the initial interesting start, it was very flat. And made me fall asleep while reading it. Which I don't usually do, as a rule. (And I'm a fast reader, so I should have been able to finish it quickly, and I couldn't do that, either.)