Review
oh no oh NO
I was so excited for this book that I preordered the signed, sprayed edges edition from Waterstones. The book is stunningly gorgeous, I will say that. Last year, House on the Cerulean Sea topped my list of favorite 2020 books. And previously his indie series were some of my favorites. I went into this book expecting to love it, especially because so many people said it made them ugly cry. I was prepared; I brought tissues and everything for my lunch break, 100% prepared to have to explain to my coworkers why I was sobbing my heart out in the middle of the day. Little did I expect…that I wasn’t going to like the book.
While I didn’t hate the book, I also didn’t love it either. It’s a firmly middle ground book that I might try again in half a year or something. As I read it, I just found…I struggled to get into it. I like books with lots of characterization and character focus. Addie LaRue for example. I VERY much enjoyed that book. But this one…just didn’t work for me in the same way. It was slow, but slow in a way that I found uninteresting at best. Which is odd, because I love slow books. Just…something didn’t click with me in regards to this book.
The concept of the book was very neat, and I thought that was interesting, but I kept having to restrain the urge to skip through parts where I felt nothing was happening, plot wise or character wise. Which was very frustrating for me because I was trying to get myself to like the book.
I also liked the variety of characters that were included in the book. I think they could have been so much more interesting, but for the most part I felt apathy about them all. On top of that the romantic relationship just didn’t work for me.
I also love Klune’s writing. He’s got such a great writing style, but in this case, the book overall didn’t work for me with his writing style. I don’t know what happened.
This is one of those books that is going to go on my shelf because it’s a special edition and one that I might see if a change of mood will make me like it.
Suffice to say I am heartbroken and disappointed that I didn’t love the book.