Brenna Yovanoff

Count me among those suckered-in by that amazing, creepy baby-basket cover.

The writing was flat, but relatively painless. I am not the target audience so I tried to be forgiving of plot holes and inconsistencies. I was less forgiving of the wildly disparate pop culture references that were more distracting than enlightening.

My biggest disappointment is the unevenness of the writing. Early on, Yovanoff quietly incorporates a few lines of dialogue to raise big questions about the nature of things. In later scenes she heavyhandidly attempts to address them. But in the end she neither provides answers nor leaves the reader in a satisfying state of contemplation.

Take Neil Gaiman and Steven King's old daydreams, toss in ageless tales of gods and fairies and good and evil, then bake it all up and frost it with sibling rivalry and teenage angst...what you get is a reasonably tasty but familiar confection, and when it's gone you have doubts that it was worth all the calories.


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On three separate occasions across three years, I read this book's description, decided I had to read it, and checked it out from the library. When I opened it this time digitally and realised that this was the same book I'd let expire twice before, I only persevered due to the recommendations of a few of my lovely GoodReads friends here with impeccable taste.

But I should have just given up. The second half was indeed better significantly than the first, but it didn't redeem it--this one just didn't click with me.… (más)