White Raven by J.L. Weil
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I don’t even know where to start. I have been having a lot of free time on my hands lately and thought I will work myself through the ever-growing list of NetGalley books.
I can’t remember why I requested this story in the first place, because reading the synopsis I can’t really find anything that would personally interest me in the story. I’m not trying to be rude; it just didn’t seem like my cup of tea.
Before I started reading I double checked the author’s other works, since the name sounded familiar and I wasn’t surprised to find that I had read one of her novellas a while back.
What did surprise me was the sarcasm that dripped from said novella’s review and I had a feeling that I might be in for a struggle with this one.
Now, I am a professional and can keep my personal biases in check, but I have to admit that this story did not fare any better than the novella.
I could tell that the story had potential to be a captivating YA paranormal series, sadly there were just too many elements that went completely sideways to salvage it.
For starters, what was the protagonist’s deal? I get that she is supposed to be a teenager, who just lost her mother (don’t worry, it’s not a spoiler).
The more I read the more I was reminded of the novella’s protagonist’s traits: supposed to be witty and sarcastic, but comes across as spoiled and ungrateful, needs to establish that she is a tough cookie, needs to establish that she is not like the other girls (you don’t say? Really? I mean others would still have some manners), and falls for a guy after seeing him for three seconds. Got it. same stock everything, different story.
I couldn’t stand the protagonist’s way of judging everyone. Her grandmother was an old woman, other girls were just competition (of course, lets support this whole idea that girls should compete with each other, instead of supporting each other) and everything just sucked, because it didn’t go her way.
I think you get the picture.
The plot was there somewhere, it was just really hard to see. According to the synopsis, this entire story should have gone a completely different direction, but alas a pair of ice blue eyes (attached to the main squeeze the protagonist literally moans over) entered at some point and then who cares about the plot.
I felt like that story should have started a lot earlier than it did. A lot of things were hinted at and not explained at all. But then again that would have taken time away from those icy blue eyes and the moaning.
The writing was horrible. A lot of catch phrases were used. Quite a bit of cultural referencing was also used in order to establish that someone was cool. Words were used incorrectly, and sentences were left unfinished.
The attempts to make the protagonist sound sarcastic just ended up making her sound tedious and annoying.
Overall, I tried. It wasn’t for me. I wouldn’t recommend it.
