So, usually I'm a big fan of reading books in Dutch. This has several reasons. I am partly working as a writer. When I read a lot of English I start to use English grammar in Dutch articles. I hope I don't have to explain to you why this is bad :) But overall, I think it is good to stay connected with your mother language.

Second, I'm a member of the library. They have much more Dutch books than English, which is very comprehensible. And I love to be able to read so many physical books for so little money a year. You can think the library is expensive, but if I buy all the books I borrow from the library, it pays of in less than 3 month. OK, I admit, I read A LOT, but I think that for most frequent readers it can pay of.

But that is not the only reason I love being a member of the library. I love the idea of the library and I think it is important there is one. We may all take it for granted, but if nobody is paying for it, how can it stay in business? You have to pay for what you want to have in your city.

It is the same with the local bookstore. If you love to have a bookstore in your town, visit it and buy your books there. In The Netherlands, books online are NOT cheaper than the ones in the stores (this is by law). And often, you can also buy them on the website of your local bookstore. In that case, the book is still delivered at your home, for the same amount of money when you buy it at an online-only shop, but at the same time you support your local bookstore. If you want your local bookstore to survive, act on it :)

I do understand that English books are cheaper online, and that the days and days of waiting are worth it. I also do that. I'm talking about Dutch books here ;) And often, Dutch books are being translated really well lately, especially from publisher BlossomBooks. I often don't even notice I'm reading a translation when I'm reading a book from them. But other publishers are hitting the right spot as well.

Oh, how different was this book. I'm sorry my review of this book started of as a rant on reading Dutch and shopping local, sometimes I just have to vent all my thoughts on those topics :P It all came out while reading this translation and making the decision to switch, hence the rant in this review and not in the review of a translated book :) I typed all of this after reading the couple of pages in Dutch :)

This book was translated so poorly, it sends shivers down my spine. Quite an achievement. But, I switched to the English version of this book after a couple of pages and it was all fine.

So, now that I've finished the books, let's continue this insane long amount of text by telling that even though I disliked the writing less, I still did not really enjoyed this book. People told me this was something like The Selection, but darker. That got me all excited. But it was one big disappointment. I don't like the setting, the world building is boringly explaining stuff I don't need to understand and I don't understand the important things, I don't really like the main character, I did not cared for any of the other characters, and the romance/intimacy scenes made me want to scratch my eyeballs out. So no, I will not read on in this series.

So, all toghether, 1*. The English book deserves 2 bevause it was an easy and quick read, but the last star down is because of the poor translation.