Innocent Darkness
byt Suzanne Lazaer
Published: 8.8.12
Pages: 408

Sixteen-year-old Noli Braddock's hoyden ways land her in an abusive reform school far from home. On mid-summer's eve she wishes to be anyplace but that dreadful school. A mysterious man from the Realm of Faerie rescues her and brings her to the Otherworld, only to reveal that she must be sacrificed, otherwise, the entire Otherworld civilization will perish.

When your favorite part of the book is the front cover, that's a pretty big sign there's a problem. But well, some books just don't fit you. And unfortunately Innocent Darkness didn't fit me. I'll try to make this quick, so it's not a super duper crazy rant.

I loved the idea of Steampunk meets Faeries. However in this case, I feel like the fey aspect overrode the Steampunk so much that they didn't work well together. The development of the Steampunk aspect was very little and almost seemed to be taken for granted. We never got to know the world. How it worked, how it runs, it was just..a world we were living in. And the fey part was even more so. There were these random words in there used regularly, such as hoyden. As the reader, I felt like I already had to know certain aspects and what things meant in regards to the fey before I read the book. Maybe these worlds didn't work because they were thrown together. Maybe for others it does work! But for me, I had too many questions and not enough were answered.

So while the lack of world building made it hard for me to fully immerse myself in the story, I think that the main problem I had was connecting with the characters. Any of them for that matter. Noli came through a bit strange, and hypocritical at times. She was stubborn one minute and almost blubbery the next, and frankly I found her quite childish. I really wanted to like her, and so it saddens me that I couldn't. The rest of the cast wasn't any different. Sure, they have interesting names and faces that have to interact with Noli, but I couldn't find anything to really endear me too them. The queen didn't seem to live up to somet of the things said about her, Kevign was very disturbing for my tastes, and the romantic interest fell flat. *sigh* These characters have so much potential and I'm sorry I couldn't connect with them.

The plot had a chance at redeeming this book. A very interesting conflict is raised in the beginning and for the first little bit I was honestly interested, but unfortunately like the rest of the book, it felt short. I must be getting pickier or soemthing. To me the way it played out felt dragged on and on till the end when we go out with a bibbidi-bobbidi-boo and Happily Ever After. It was great and all, but I needed to be able to feel like the HEA was justified. And in this case, I didn't get that.

So I'm unfortunatley left to conclude that this book didn't work for me. I'm sad to admit it, but that's the truth. I know this book has been enjoyed by quite a few people, so maybe this will be up your alley!

Content: Moderate
[kissing, a man has man perverted thoughts about women. characters are chaste, but sleep in bed together. it is known that some characters are not chaste.]
Well that's me! What do YOU think? XOXO,

It's time for another episode of Books That Didn't Hook Me. Where I feature books I didn't finish or just didn't like for any particular reason. Today's singular spotlight is....

Published: 3.20.12 by Dial
ADD ON GOODREADS

How do I put this nicely? I. DIDN'T. FINISH. THIS. BOOK.

So I got my hands on this book, and having enjoyed Prophecy of the Sisters, I was hoping for a new enjoying take on Angels. But one of the things I quickly found out was how INFORMATIVE Zink was. There were a few parts I felt like I was drowning in description and when Helen was basically saying the SAME thing over again, but with different words. Like she came to the same conclusion three times in a row.

Not to mention that this book was told in 3rd person. I don't like 3rd person very much because I don't get into the head of the characters as well and I can't feel that emotional connection to the romance, and the plot. I didn't get that with Helen. She was boring. Oh and I should mention this book is full of cliche. It's in the beginning, it's in the romance it's the book. It wasn't horrible. It was and interesting plot take and angel theory. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure I could have enjoyed it if I didn't get myself distracted with a bunch of other books. But I did, and after that I just didn't have the heart to go back and finish it.

I'm sad, because I felt like this book had potential. 432 pages worth of potential! Sadly it just didn't make the cut-off. But it is a clean read.

Have you read this? Do you want to? Did my review change the way you think of this book? Are you still interested? I'd love to hear your thoughts! XOXO,