This immediately started out extremely weird but I was okay with it. Well, mostly, but I was fine. Then it just felt like it fell apart after the 50% mark. Nothing made sense – well it rarely did, but even more so. I found that I just didn’t have interest in it anymore. Even though it wasn’t that long. But at the same time, it felt like it was going on forever. I can’t even explain the plot and I was just shy of 70%. I only saw the cosmic horror in the synopsis after I dnfed it, which sort of made sense but at the same time… didn’t? I’ll probably just skip to the end to see what all happens – although I have a very good feeling I won’t understand a single thing. 

The writing started to feel off early into reading it and usually that’s a good feeling for me to stop reading. Also there was sort of racism? Or like stereotypes thinly veiled as racism so… that’s reason enough for me to dnf. I like post-apocalyptic fiction but this one didn’t ‘zing’ for me as I’d hoped it would. As I dnfed early on I didn’t get enough of the plot as I’d liked to have – which would’ve been cool as there were vampires in the plot. 

Unfortunately I almost… immediately felt the dnf urge with this one. Which is sad because it has a team doing a heist! I love those things. It looked so good from the cover and synopsis, so I wanted to read it. It just didn’t work out for me. The characters seemed to all blend into one and by 20 or so percent I felt like I didn’t have a good grasp on anyone’s personality. That made it difficult to get into the book properly so I just stopped reading. 

Sometimes the paragraphs didn’t easily flow one after another. I find that when that happens it dampens my liking of the book. It slowly started to pick up but by Chapter 14/46, I decided it might be time to think about dnfing. Maybe I could have switched to the audio to really see but I don’t think that would’ve helped much. I found some of the sentences were giving that “look, I can write energy” which honestly was another reason to dnf for me. 

I didn’t see the chemistry between the two main characters. I’m always up for a vampire but he just didn’t give that vampire vibe that I was looking for? Not that I wanted him (Casimir) to be the traditional night creature with a cape and fangs but I didn’t get his appeal. I think I did like Casimir a bit more than the female main character, Rowan. I could see her potential and I wanted her to reach it – but as I reached nearly 40% I could see I wasn’t going to get what I wanted – which is why I decided to leave it.

I found the pacing to be a bit non-existent. How much time did they travel before they professed their love for each other? I don’t mind instalove – when well written. Another dnf reason was that it was all flowery writing and unfortunately, as it so happens in this book, the (flowery) writing at times wasn’t working for me. 

I started this in January and finally decided to stop reading this month. I should’ve dnfed earlier but it was one of those where I thought it would get better and then… unfortunately it never did. So I eventually stopped at 51% because I really didn’t want to finish a book I was struggling to read.This book is only just over 400 pages and yet! It’s so slow-paced. As I’ve said before – when authors can’t do slow-paced books well enough it shows and I’m can’t unsee it. I just really thought I’d like this too! I think that was the issue here. As per usual, other people did really like it and that’s the great thing about dnfs!

There’s Fae in this and usually I like that – I found the Fae in here to not be interesting enough to keep me reading, you know? I think I liked the Prince the most of the three main characters although I can’t remember his name right now. I wasn’t exactly a fan of the main character, Auralie. I couldn’t get into her personality, didn’t feel for her, all those things. 

Yes, this is a long book – almost 600 pages. Normally I’d only pick this size up in audio or physical but I decided to try it out in ebook. I need to try to see if I can get back to thick ebooks! I liked the synopsis but it definitely gave me the feeling the action would start almost immediately. As in the heist plot would start within the first five or so percent. The characters only get told about the heist 20% into the book. That should’ve given me enough time to get to know the characters but that wasn’t the case for me. I see a lot of other people really enjoyed this and I’m glad!

Unfortunately I felt that the writing was clunky – it was trying to do far much and failed a lot. I find that often happens in a fantasy debut – I think it’s just that authors try to do so much because it’s their debut. It can sometimes work, and then doesn’t. Although please remember this is just my opinion. Some other issues were unnecessary sentences – like I would read them and ask why they needed to be there. There’s also almost fourth wall breaking which certainly didn’t fit in anywhere – I like fourth wall breaking but again, it has to done a certain way. You have to have a certain type of writing to have that work.

Am retaining nothing. Krampus and Claus feel the same to me.

wasn't enjoying myself anymore and it's too long for a YA Mystery/Thriller

As you can see by my percentage, I did really try with this one. But as you can see that it’s here, it didn’t really matter. Even though my Kindle told me it would take roughly another half hour to finish the book, I wasn’t up for finishing it. I like Hades and Persephone retellings – which is why I requested this – but it didn’t work out. My liking for Persephone went up and down as the book carried on. Some scenes I liked her, other times I felt like she didn’t have a solid personality. I liked Hades, I thought he had quite a solid personality – but that wouldn’t have been enough for me to carry on. 

The writing was a big reason why I chose not to finish the book. It wasn’t capturing my attention as much as I would like. Around the time I stopped there was suddenly a trial about to happen? And Persephone was meant to partake for some reason? If that had happened either at the start of the book or have been the main plot point, I probably would’ve carried on as I really like trials. I noticed the dialogue wasn’t flowing neatly and unfortunately that tends to make or break a novel for me.