Author: Mackenzi Lee
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: June 27, 2017
Goodreads
Review:
If I'm being honest this book just wasn't memorable to me. The characters, plot, I was nearly indifferent to all of it. I had been so excited to read this book because of the hype train around it but I found myself feeling disengaged and distant from the characters.
We can blame this distance on Monty. Henry "Monty" Montague was the worst. I think he is supposed to come off as charming and a bit rough around the edges. I found him to be painfully immature, woefully out of touch, and so ungrateful I just couldn't even. I will say he does grow throughout the novel but it is too little too late. The damage to the story was already done for me. I was hoping Monty would be a character similar to Strumhound in Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone trilogy. Instead Monty was a whiny brat.
I will say I liked that this book presented a multitude of different, diverse, points of view. Monty is bisexual, his sister may be asexual, and Percy, Monty's love interest, is bi-racial with an interesting family history. I think it made the stories characters more well-rounded.
It's too bad that the plot itself dragged for me. The pacing didn't feel consistent, there seemed to be a lot of downtimes followed by surprises out of nowhere. This isn't atypical to historical novels though so if you've read extensively in this sub-genre it may not bother you as much as it did me.
Overall, I enjoyed the book enough but not enough to seek out the rest of the series. But some stellar reviews could change my mind.
One of my best friends loves this book and keeps pushing me to read it, but when I do, I'll try and lower my expectations a bit! I'll keep in mind that the pace is inconsistent!
ReplyDeleteOh, wow! I found this book rather enjoyable! I can see how Monty's character could be a turn-off, though; he was pretty immature, although I felt somewhat bad for him because of his history with his father. I am rather excited for the second book, as it will be told from Felicity's point-of-view!
ReplyDeleteRosie // rosiewritesthings.com
Thiis was a lovely blog post
ReplyDelete