Take a photo of a barcode or cover
skconaghan 's review for:
Serpent & Dove
by Shelby Mahurin
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
...it's like Outlander for teens (17+ I should say) who have a penchant for magic and enjoy a crass feminist fight against being trapped in a women-hating societal system so patriarchal they smell oestrogen and call it witchcraft...the pages burn with hormones and angst...
The story was adventurous, fast, simple entertainment. The two main characters were clichés peeled from a contrasting Puritan England and 21st CE NY/LA, then mashed into a no-pretext romance. The setting was apparently 17th CE France, though the dialogue was all modern American white-bread High School. Somehow, it all worked together to build action-packed scenes that unfolded a plot of treason, intrigue, deception, and forbidden love.
I’m making it sound far more interesting than it was.
The writing was basic, the dialogue immature at times, though it sure made a grandiose effort at playing off as more mature than appropriate for the target age. Void of literary or poetic quality in the delivery, the novel races through the story, because the focus is the story, not style, and this is a story that’s going around like a snotty virus among the YA genre. They’re all starting to blend together, I can barely remember a single author’s name.