Friday, November 9, 2012
by Melissa Marr
Published: 9.4.12 by Harper Collins
Pages: 306
GOODREADS * PURCHASE
In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures--if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.
All Mallory knows of The City is that her father--and every other witch there--fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls.
All Mallory knows of The City is that her father--and every other witch there--fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls.
Inky's Blurbings:
I have not read Melissa's Wicked Lovely series. I don't think I ever will. But when I first hear about this book and saw the simple, but captivating cover I knew I was bound to love it. *insert alarm* Sadly, that didn't turn out to be the case. I have nothing wrong with this book, other than the fact that I didn't finish it. And the reason why I didn't finish it? It was BORING.
Or maybe the more accurate term for that is Flat. Dull. Without depth. Refer to your Thesaurus for more terms. Sure there was lots of WORLD build-up and explanations and interesting world-crossed romance and surprise character revealings but I didn't care about any of it. There was not character depth or meaning. It felt like everything was just happening and why should I care. It was like a dry soap-opera.
For starters lets take The City. It's an alternate universe/world but it sounds pretty close to the mortal world. I hate when we don't get accurate descriptions of this. I was confused for the longest time about where the heck it was and how they got there. Then I saw a character go through the gate and just pop out into the mortal world. Okay. Got it? Sort of, maybe. I don't know. It was a neat city, but it also felt like just any old city. What put it apart was this carnival. But it still felt like every other old carnival! Sure it had this SOULS thing, but what the heck was that? Did I miss some explanation in the second half of the book? Sure there is a deadly competition, but that's been done before. Whole books have been written about them.
What about Aya? Kaleb? Mallory? They were interesting, but I could never that feel that I like from a character. Each of these characters has an interesting predicament with a few twists and secrets about themselves that are revealed fairly quickly. I wasn't expecting them, but they didn't drive me into shock or make me re-read for comprehension. I just kept reading. It was like they were stick figures. They had a body, but no color. They talked about problems all the time but we didn't get emotional depth. We didn't get flashbacks into their past to learn about them. They just were. Sadness.
So in conclusion, since I failed to feel originality or character depth by the middle point of the book, I dropped it to move onto bigger and better things. I don't regret that choice and I doubt I ever will. Melissa Marr is just not my type. And I'm sad about this, because of all the great reviews, and the fact that this is her SECOND series.
2.5 DNF Stars
Sigh. So those are my thoughts about this book. I hope YOU like this book better than I did. Link me up to your review! Have you read Do you want to? Do my thoughts make you rethink that choice? I'd love to hear! XOXO,
10 comments:
Heyo! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! I love to hear from my awesome-sauce blog readers. You just made my day! I try to reply to every comment I get so if you have a question check back later! Or just link me up to your blog (if you have one) and I'll visit you! Have a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day! <333 Inky
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it's a book i wanted to discover ( and still want to at least a part of me) so i enjoyed to hear your opinion on it even it you didn't like it/dnf it
ReplyDeleteI hope you like it better than I did!
DeleteI was really excited for this one but then I saw a lot of reviews saying it was on the boring side. :( I may get to it at some point but for now I think I will put it off. Thanks for sharing an honest opinion! I really appreciate that. :)
ReplyDelete~Sara @ Forever 17 Books
You're so welcome Sara! I know right? I saw the good so I though it would be awesome. Oh well.
DeleteI've read Wicked Lovely and hated it but some reviewers mentioned that her writing was better in this so I gave it a go. It IS better but I still didn't like it and DNF the book as well.
ReplyDeleteThe audiobook on the other hand was pretty good. Maybe because I have a weakness for nice voices...it made 'reading' the book a more interesting experience!
That's true. They are probably able to put more emotion in it when it's an audiobook. Good to know I probably won't care about the WL books to miss them.
DeleteGreat review. This book disappointed me so much because it was one of my most highly anticipated fall 2012 reads. But I agree with everything you said. The whole book was just words on a page to me. No meaning, no flair, no excitement. Huge bummer.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's nice to find people who agree with out so you don't feel like the one red rose in a jar of white. :D Lol. IKR? It was totally sad.
DeleteAw, that really sucks, bro. I hate reading about depthless characters, and I'm surprised to hear that these characters were like that for you. I'm a character girl, through and through, so I'd get immensely bored in that same situation.
ReplyDeleteExactly! It's the characters that I cut books for most of the time. Terribly tragic I know. If you're like me you'll probably want to skip this one.
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