A review by twitchyredpen
Abandon by Meg Cabot
1.0
Hades/Persephone with all the literary brilliance and female agency of a Twilight novel.
Plot is unoriginal but had potential; it's the writing that makes the book so unenjoyable.
The first 2/3-3/4 of the book are full of vague references to "the accident" and "the incident," which don't build intrigue so much as build a suspicion the writer had meant to tell you about those earlier but has completely forgotten.
Mostly telling instead of showing, and Pierce sometimes "just knows" things. Where there is longer description, it stands out (not excellently) because of how little there is anywhere else.
The last 1/4 of the book is where anything interesting finally begins to happen -- then the book ends without resolving any of it except that the two main characters, in case you hadn't figured it out by the telling of Hades/Persephone in the first chapter,. Supposedly a series, but seems like a longer book that got cut at a chapter break to start a new one. It ends in what might otherwise be building to the climax of it.
Possibly the best thing I can say about this is that it's bad in a bad-movie way. I could groan and roll my eyes but it didn't make me turn it off.
Drinking game, take a drink when you read/hear:
"Um," I said.
"Oh," I said.
[Statement], well, [direct disagreement with previous statement].
... who(m) I met while I was dead ...
Audiobook narrator reads with teenage detached boredom. I didn't like some of the intonation/inflection, but isn't bad.
Plot is unoriginal but had potential; it's the writing that makes the book so unenjoyable.
The first 2/3-3/4 of the book are full of vague references to "the accident" and "the incident," which don't build intrigue so much as build a suspicion the writer had meant to tell you about those earlier but has completely forgotten.
Mostly telling instead of showing, and Pierce sometimes "just knows" things. Where there is longer description, it stands out (not excellently) because of how little there is anywhere else.
The last 1/4 of the book is where anything interesting finally begins to happen -- then the book ends without resolving any of it except that the two main characters, in case you hadn't figured it out by the telling of Hades/Persephone in the first chapter,
Spoiler
presumably get togetherPossibly the best thing I can say about this is that it's bad in a bad-movie way. I could groan and roll my eyes but it didn't make me turn it off.
Drinking game, take a drink when you read/hear:
"Um," I said.
"Oh," I said.
[Statement], well, [direct disagreement with previous statement].
... who(m) I met while I was dead ...
Audiobook narrator reads with teenage detached boredom. I didn't like some of the intonation/inflection, but isn't bad.