Sinful Book Reviews

I picked this up on a whim. I’m the type of person to tell myself that I’m not going to buy into the hype books. I’ll tell myself that for weeks, maybe even months, before I finally break down and read whatever it is that’s the latest “must read” in the YA book world. I mean, more often than not, it’s the YA genre that has the latest hype. This was just one of those times that I was browsing through the audiobooks in the library and came across a book I’d seen reviewed on nearly every blog. So, I thought “what the hell” and picked it up.

I have to say I was a little disappointed. The book was good, but I expected more from it. This is why I hate hype. No matter how hard I try to read a book objectively, I expect a lot out of a book that’s getting great reviews from everyone. I’m sorry to disappoint those who loved this book by saying I just wasn’t that impressed.

I found the plot interesting and engaging. This is the first book I’ve read about fallen angels (I don’t consider this a spoiler since that’s clearly what the cover is). I liked the story for the most part. The basic plot was great. I just sometimes felt like it was all over the place, like it wasn’t pieced together just right or something. It also felt a little lopsided, like I was a little bored at the beginning and all the action was at the very end. In short, I think it could have used a little more editing.

My biggest problem was how unimpressed I was with the characters. If you’ve read any of my reviews, you know I love characters. They’re the most important part of a book to me. The characters in this book have almost no depth. Nora has a little, but I just didn’t like her for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on. I found no way to her at all, and she wasn’t a cool enough character for me to like her in spite of that. Patch is probably the only character I liked because he does have some depth and he’s clever. He’s also the badass, a character type I tend to like anyway. The rest of the characters were throwaways. I couldn’t have cared less about them.

The writing was decent. It was basic story telling, nothing too special. In a book with great characters and great plot, I would like this because it would stay out of the way of the rest of the book. This book wanted more, so it would have been nice to have more lyrical writing. Just something to spruce everything up.

Let me point out that I’m reviewing this audiobook and not the print book. As much as I hate to admit this, there is a difference. I try not to judge an entire book based on the narrator and how they read it, but sometimes I can’t help it. Perhaps, if I had read the print book rather than listened to the audiobook I would have liked it better. Narrators have the ability to give the characters a voice and personality comes with that voice. The was they say the sentences changes them. I was definitely not fond of this narrator. Her absolutely perfect diction was really distracting. I mean, no one actually talks that way. It just doesn’t sound natural. It took away a lot from the book and it made everything sound choppy. So if you’re going to read this book, I recommend picking up the print version and not the audiobook.

I hope no one hates me for this. I’m not trying to bash on this book or anything, just giving my opinion. Like I said, this was decent book. I just feel like after all the five star rated reviews I’ve read, I needed to point out the reasons why I’m choosing not to give it five stars. I liked it enough that I’m planning to read Crescendo.