Tag Archives: 2.5 stars

books, Reviews, science fiction, Space opera

Stars and Bones (The Continuance 1) by Garreth Powell

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

My mind is divided about this book. On one hand, I liked the idea behind it, the symbiosis between humanity and the intelligent ships they live on. On the other hand, it was all a bit too… simplistic, I’d say?

In this story, humanity didn’t earn anything they have. All they did was try to self-destruct in a final conflagration of atomic fire. One person made a breakthrough in space travel and got the attention of a cosmic being so advanced it might as well be a deity. Heck, they even call it the Angel of Benevolence in the book. Nothing of what happens after that was earned. The arks the humans live on? Created by the Angel. The artificial intelligences that pilot and run them? Also created by the Angel. All food and shelter is provided to everyone involved. Oh, and humanity is pretty much condemned to roam the cosmos in these arks for all eternity without ever setting on another planet. 

Doesn’t the author realize that this would literally be the end of our species? Slow death by apathy. If there is nothing to aspire to, nothing to invent or better ourselves for, then there is really nothing to live for. It reminds me of that experiment researchers did with a mouse colony back in the last century – they provided them with ideal conditions where food and shelter was abundant… and the colony died out. They just stopped reproducing or even interacting with each other. They ate, they slept, and they slowly gave up on life.

I would understand if there was something to strive for – get a good education, and you will be taught how to pilot a ship. Continue scientific research into space travel, study alien ruins or something else. But when everything is provided, and all the decisions are made for you… I’m not sure this is a future I want to live in.

My other issue is the characters. They are barely developed enough to be more than cardboard cutouts. Heck, the different ship envoys have more personality than the human characters. Which, seeing what I talked about in the previous paragraphs, kind of makes sense. Eryn was the only more or less fleshed-out character in this book. The rest were labels. Lee is the love interest. Then there is the annoying teenager whom she has to care for because she is her sister’s child. Then there is Frank, the genius who discovered warp travel… and who is pretty much useless for the rest of the book. I barely remember any of the other character names because they were introduced only to advance the plot and then die off-screen, like the wannabe reporter Tessa.

The story would have been more interesting if the characters had more agency. As it is, Eryn is sent on a wild goose chase to find a McGuffin (who is Frank in this case), even though the McGuffin is useless to this particular problem. Then the deus ex machina that is the Angel puts something into her brain and sends her on another quest to deliver this payload to the enemy. And that wins the day. End of story. Never mind the fact that over three-quarters of the arks had been corrupted by the time it’s done, which means the Continuance is a ghost town with critically low population. None of that is addressed at the end of the book.

In summary, I went into this book looking for a space adventure that would keep me entertained and characters I could root for. I was rather disappointed instead.

books, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Dark Game (Lance Brody 1) by Michael Robertson Jr

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

This was entertaining enough that I felt engaged with the story and cared about what happened to Lance and Leah, so I feel that a 2.5-star rating is earned. However, there are a few problems with this book that put me on the fence as to whether I will continue with the series. 

First, this book is listed as the first in the series, but it starts with Lance on the run from something horrible that happened in his hometown. Something that probably killed his mother. This is very confusing for a first-time reader who doesn’t know that there is a prequel novella about these events. It can be frustrating because it feels like we are missing a big chunk of the story.

The second issue is that Lance doesn’t exactly think things through before he rushes headfirst to fight evil. This results in him being more of a damsel in distress who needs help and rescue from others, be it Leah, her father, or the paramedic. And people get hurt because of that. I would have liked him better if he had displayed at least some semblance of planning before rushing into the unknown. Also, he is no superhero; heck, he admits that his powers don’t work on demand, so this recklessness is rather jarring with the rest of his character. My hope is that, being the first book, he will grow out of it as he matures. 

The insta-love between him and Leah was also a bit cringe. In fact, I found that a lot of interactions between Lance and other characters were rather far-fetched. He just seems to “feel” which people are good and trustworthy. And these people just take his crazy stories at face value and agree to help him with everything he needs. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. 

Also, it feels like everything comes too easily for him. He senses great evil in the town, and lo and behold, he meets Leah, who is EXACTLY the person to help him with that. He gets hurt in the car crash, but not to worry, because Leah’s friend is a paramedic, who patches him up and doesn’t even think about reporting him to the cops, even though he fled the scene of an accident where a cop was killed. He gets trapped by the big bad… and once again is rescued by somebody else. If you look at it, Lance didn’t DO anything to defeat this evil. He just showed up in town, created havoc by stumbling around like a bull in a China shop, and then let other people rescue him and save the day. 

We are told over and over that he is special, but none of his actions in this book illustrate that. Again, this being the first book in the series, I hope that Lance evolves as a character and matures in subsequent books, but I am not sure I want to invest my time in finding out.

books, Reviews, science fiction

The Reinvented Detective by Cat Rambo

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

I honestly expected more of this anthology. I mean, stories about detectives set in the far future, solving cases using technologies we can only dream of? That’s right up my alley! The cover is gorgeous as well, and contributed to my requesting this book from NetGalley. The contents were rather disappointing, though.

I think I liked maybe three stories out of the whole anthology. Murder at the Westminster Dino Show by Rosemary Claire Smith was a fun short story that made me chuckle a couple of times. I mean, pocket-sized dinosaurs? Humanity would be crazy enough to fall for that trend. The downside of this story was that the protagonist wasn’t particularly bright. Heck, it felt like her pet dinosaur brought her all the clues she needed.

In the Shadow of the Great Days by Harry Turtledove was also fun enough to read, even if it presented a rather bleak image of the future.

The Unassembled Victims by Peter Clines was the highlight of this anthology for me. It was well-crafted, and I loved the characters. It set up the tone and the world effortlessly. It made you care about what was happening. More importantly, both detectives were actually smart people who did some detecting. I wouldn’t mind reading other stories set in this world, because there is so much to explore there.

The rest of the stories in this anthology fell rather blah to me. The biggest issue is that in many of them, there wasn’t much detecting or unraveling of clues. I also either didn’t connect with the protagonists or the writing styles. And I will admit that I don’t particularly care for poetry. Some of the stories also felt half-baked, as if the author had a word count to meet and didn’t particularly care about aspects like worldbuilding or characterization.

All in all, this is more of a miss for me, with one excellent story and two okay ones.

PS: I received an advanced copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews

Three (Legend of the Dustwalker 1) by Jay Posey

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

I really wanted to like this book. I am a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic story, so I had high hopes. And that cover is amazing. 

The book started strong, and I really connected with Three, even if I was confused about the different pieces of worldbuilding the book was throwing at me left and right. Surely, everything will get explained eventually, I thought. Right?

Wrong. NOTHING is explained. We have a world surviving some earth-shattering technological catastrophe that left everything in pretty much ruins. Yet it seems like advanced technology still works. I mean, all the people born in this world have a genetically implanted ability to connect to satellites to check the time, use GPS, ping each other, etc. So that means that the satellites are still functional… How exactly? Without constant monitoring from the surface and course corrections, all of them would have slowly drifted out of orbit and burned in the atmosphere. 

At one point, it’s also mentioned that people can upload their consciousness into a digital afterlife before they die, but where exactly are those servers kept? That’s a lot of data that would require a lot of processing power and infrastructure. It’s not like it can exist in thin air alone. So are there still places with advanced enough technology to keep the satellites and other complex systems functioning? Don’t know. It’s never mentioned.

The same catastrophe presumably also created the Weir, but we never get any explanation as to what those Weir really are or where they come from. Why do they attack at night and hide during the day? Are they all part of a technological hive mind? Do they infect other connected people or reuse the bodies of those they kill? 

And speaking of uploading and leaving their bodies behind. It’s mentioned at one point that one of the characters uploaded, but then came back into his body, even though it’s implied that that is not possible… And afterwards, it’s never mentioned again. All the characters just shrug at something that is clearly abnormal and just go on about their business.

And this whole book is like that – the author throws in a concept or mentions some kind of event, but never expands on it. Nothing is ever explained. It’s hard to understand the hardships the characters are facing if we aren’t clear about the rules of this world. What is the Strand? We are told that it’s mortally dangerous, but it’s never explained why. 

And the Weir’s behavior also changes depending on what the author needs it to be. In the beginning of the book, Three mentions to Cass that if they stay silent and “unplugged”, the Weir won’t sense them. Yet, the Weir find them anyway in the Strand, so which is it?

My other issue is with the characters. While I liked Three, I was a lot less happy with Cass and Wren. I mean, Cass doesn’t have much personality apart from Mama Bear when Wren is concerned and a damsel in distress when he isn’t. We are told that she was a valued member of RushRuin, but why exactly? What was it that she brought to the table? 

And once again, this is where the lack of worldbuilding is hurting characterisation. Cass is augmenting her body and mind with chems, and it’s killing her, but we never get a real explanation as to why. What is the difference between the chems named in this book? Why is quint so dangerous? How exactly is it killing her? How is all this produced if most of the world is in ruins? Also, what are the limitations? See, I cannot tell when Cass is doing something normal, phenomenal, or even extremely dangerous because I have no clue what quint is supposed to do to her.

I was okay with Wren, because even though he is the Special One, he behaved like a normal 5 year old child for most of the book. A scared child who is out of his depth and forced to see and confront some pretty ugly things. 

What I didn’t like was that Three transformed from this ultra-compenent survivalist, a lethal warrior who roamed the desolation between various human enclaves for years, into a self-doubting wreck of a man who couldn’t do anything right. Also, I wasn’t sold on the sudden affection he developed for Cass. Sorry, don’t buy it. Grudging respect – yes, care for her and Wren – absolutely, but love to the point of sacrifice? Erm, nope. 

It is hinted that she reminded Three of someone he had loved and failed to protect, but once again, the lack of worldbuilding does a disservice to the characters. We get brief mentions of Three’s past, but not enough to explain his behavior. Like what ties him to jCharles and his wife? Where does his guilt come from? What was this House he was created in and for what purpose? Also, WHEN was that? 

In the end, I was left with a lot more questions than answers and a very vague worldbuilding that left me frustrated and unengaged most of the book. And the final confrontation with Asher was just ridiculous. Talk about a one-dimensional villain with no redeeming qualities. It begs to question, if Asher was such a horrible human being, why didn’t the other members of RushRuin do him in or walk away from him? Most of them seemed like decent people and were powerful in their own right, so he must have had some kind of hold on them.

Anyway, I am not sure if there are more explanations about this world in the next book, and I am not even sure I feel like continuing with this series.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Sword and Sorcery, Uncategorized

The Soul of Iuchiban (The Legend of the Five Rings) by Evan Dicken

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

I usually love books set in the Legend of the Five Rings realm, because that world is so rich in history, mythology, and lore that it sucks me right in. Add a few compelling characters and an interesting goal for them to achieve, and you have me hooked and happily exploring Rokugan with them.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case in this book. Now, I realize that this is the continuation of The Heart of Iuchiban, so the story follows directly after the events of the previous book ended. If you haven’t read the first book, it would be very difficult to understand what is going on and who is who. In fact, I would say that you shouldn’t start with this book at all. You need to have read The Heart of Iuchiban to fully appreciate the story in this book.

But even that isn’t really the main problem. Plenty of other stories are told in duologies, and I loved the second books in the series just as much as I loved the first ones. My issue is that about 70% of the book feels pointless. Characters start off in different parts of Rokugan and seem to wander aimlessly for three-quarters of the book until they all meet back in the Imperial City and the action really picks up. 

I mean, what was the point of Naoki’s journey back to the Twilight Mountains? The only positive outcome out of that trip was to pick up Seiji. Other than that, it just feels like an aimless road trip designed to add page time to an already long book. I’m sure the author could have found another way of getting Seiji to the Imperial City and have the main characters meet. Heck, make them meet in the basement of horrors, just like they met with Quadan! That would have worked just as well. 

And while most of the book drags and meanders in these pointless detours, the last few chapters rush towards the resolution at a breakneck pace. So much so that you don’t have a chance to breathe and understand what is happening and how the characters jump to the conclusions they jump to.

Also, for an immortal sorcerer who prides himself at being smart and planning for every possibility, Iuchiban’s actions in the end were pretty dumb. And I am going to avoid spoilers here, but why lock them up for just asking about names when NOBODY had any suspicion about you? Just let them attend the ceremony and continue as planned, and nobody would have been the wiser. And why leave such an important artefact as one of your original names in the hands of someone who has the power and will to use it against you?

All in all, I enjoyed this foray into Rokugan, as I always do with these books, but a lot less than many other series set in this world.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Ghost Story, Reviews

The Ghosts of Beatrice Bird by Louisa Morgan

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

This book started with a bang, and I really liked the character of Beatrice and her genuine desire to help people. She is a compelling character and easy to like. Though I must admit that I couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief that dropping acid a couple of times would somehow unlock her latent ability to see other people’s ghosts. However, I was willing to let that slide because I liked Bea, and I wanted to see where this story would go. I wanted to see Bea conquer her ghosts and come triumphant on the other end of her ordeal.

I also loved the island and the nuns who run the ferry. Mother Maggie was a pleasure to read about, and I would have loved to hear more about her life and her very pale and washed-out ghosts. Unfortunately, we don’t get nearly enough of her in this story.

The descriptions of island life are also very calming. I wouldn’t have minded living in Bea’s cottage with the cows and the views of the tumultuous sea. So I was fully engaged with the story and read the first 50% of the book in one sitting. Then Anne arrived at the island, and the book went downhill from there.

See, the story shifted from being about Bea to being about Anne and her abusive and controlling husband. Bea was relegated to a side character who was there to build up Anne’s confidence and be a receptive ear for Anne to tell us her story. It would have worked hadn’t Anne been such a meh character. I understand what the author tried to do here – the battered wife who carries all the guilt about being in this situation in the first place and thinks it’s her fault. However, this is written a bit on the nose here. Her husband is a caricature of an abusive and controlling psychopath. He is so over-the-top evil that I couldn’t take him seriously as a character or as a threat to Bea and Anne. There are better books written about this topic. Heck, even Stephen King wrote a book about a battered wife who ran away from her abusive cop husband and managed to build a new life for herself, and that book was more compelling than Anne’s story.

So after the focus shifted to Anne, I slowly lost interest in the book. In fact, I put it down for a few weeks and only came back to it because I don’t like DNFing books unless I absolutely don’t jell with them. But I skimmed till the end more than I read, hitting the major plot points. And even then I can tell that the ending is very overwritten. It should have stopped several chapters before it did. In fact, it should have stopped after James left the island the second time. Everything else could have been summarized in a brief epilogue. 

As it stands, this book had a lot of promise but ended up a disappointment for me, but I am willing to give it 2.5 stars because in the beginning I really thought I would love it.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Horror, Reviews

Haunted Ground: The Ghosts of Laskin’s Farm by Cailyn Lloyd

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

I had such great hopes for this book! It started strong, and I thought that finally, this would be a decent ghost story. One where supernatural elements would help the protagonist against the very real threat that the cartel poses.  Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. 

The setup is perfect – an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere seemingly frozen in time. Fully furnished and provisioned, like the family just stepped out for a minute and never came back home. All their possessions still there. A desperate protagonist who is willing to put up with the creepiness of the situation in exchange for a safe haven from the evil that is hunting her. I loved the beginning of this book with Kat finding the house and setting up, but unfortunately, the story went downhill from there.

The biggest problem is Kat herself. I hate protagonists who are too stupid to live, but survive against all odds (and common sense) because of plot armor, and Kat is a perfect example of such a protagonist. 

So she is on the run from the cartel. She thinks her best bet is to go to ground and disappear off the radar for a while. That makes perfect sense. If I were her, I would leave the state first, and go as far as I could before I found a hole to hide in instead of staying in the vicinity, but okay, to each its own. She finds this abandoned farmhouse by looking through satellite images and Google Maps. Okay, that works too. But then she starts remodeling the place and improving it once she gets there – clears out the backyard, dumps the trash from the house outside, etc, and it never crosses her mind that all those changes will be visible to satellites? Google updates its maps regularly. So a cleared-out backyard in an abandoned farm would stick out like a sore thumb. Does she think that the people looking for her are too stupid to use Google Maps?

Also, if you are trying to hide and keep a low profile, settling near a small town where almost everyone knows each other and the presence of a stranger will be noted is not a very good idea. Biking to said town several times a week for supplies is also rather stupid. People remember a stranger on a bike buying provisions twice a week. At least spread your shopping between several small towns. Go to different ones each week, etc.

My other issue is that I didn’t particularly like how women were portrayed in this book. Other than Kat, who is portrayed as this good person who slipped and make some mistakes, but is turning her life around now, everyone else is bitchy and condescending. Natalie is judgemental and self-serving, oh, and seems to hate rich men for no particular reason. And Gina… don’t even start me on Gina. Power-hungry but insecure she-bitch. I mean, I thought we were done with these cliched representations by now. All the women in Kat’s life are horrible, apart from her cell-mate who is conveniently absent from the story. All the men around her are also horrible, apart from her love interest who is too nice to be true. 

Finally, why did we even mention ghosts in this story? They play no part in it. Everything that happened is a geological phenomenon. Take the ghosts out of the book, and nothing changes. I came for a haunted house book, not for whatever this turned out to be. 

Also, the plume affects literally everyone apart from Kat herself? She is the only one who can keep her wits about her and not succumb to paranoia, violence,e and stupidity? Yeah, I don’t believe that. 

books, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews

Among These Bones (Among These Bones 1) by Amanda Luzzader

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

This started pretty strong but petered out by the end. 

The premise is fantastic – a global pandemic destroyed society as we know it. The survivors must take a serum every year in order not to contract the disease that killed most of humanity. The unfortunate side effect of this serum is that it wipes your memories. So every year you start as a blank slate, with the Agency telling you who you are, who your family is, and what you did in life. But who is to say that any of it is true? Is that child that the Agency shoved into your arms really your son or a random stranger? Is your name really Allison? 

I believe the author wasted the potential of this premise because there could have been so much more she could have done there! Allison in particular seems prone to accept these facts at face value and not even question them until the later part of the book. She is content just to keep her head down, get her rations, and hole up in a ratty house for the rest of her life. It’s Arie that is trying to push the limits of their world and to discover what really happened on Year One. 

And I think that was ultimately the biggest issue for me. Allison is the protagonist, and she is boring as fish. I couldn’t care less for her tribulations because she didn’t really commit to anything until the end of the book. Until then, she just kind of floated along the current and followed whichever person of authority she happened to be with, be it Arie or Ruby. Also, she is written as a bit dim. I mean you know an Agency supervisor took a special interest in you and your son, and you discovered that Arie was being tracked via his chip. Why oh why would you bring a very recognizable truck straight to your house? Especially when working vehicles are so rare? And why would you rush back there after the stint you pulled at the serum storage facility? That’s next level stupid.

Actually, all the characters in this book are written as not very bright, even if the author says otherwise about some of them. They survive and pull a successful heist only because of plot contrivances and kevlar-thick plot armor. And once I realized that, I couldn’t really care for their well-being because it felt like they would survive no matter how dire the situation was. Apart from Gracy that is, but then again, we barely knew the girl. I’m almost convinced that she was introduced only for the purpose of fridging her to create some motivation for Allison.

All in all, this was a rather disappointing read. It started great but devolved into the standard and stereotypical story of an evil corporation doing something to common people for nefarious but nebulous reasons. Also, the bad guys in this story had no shades of gray whatsoever. I don’t think I will be continuing with this series.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

The Graveyard Watch by R. J. Eason

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5

This book had potential, I love urban fantasy and new interesting takes that authors have on the old thrope of monsters living among us without the general public being aware of it and secret agencies in the government created to police them. So I was more than on board with this and ready to enjoy my read. Unfortunately, the execusion suffers from what I would call “the first book” syndrom. And while I am willing to forgive a lot if I like the story and the characters, the flaws outweighted the positives in this case.

My biggest issue with the book is head hopping. I HATE this. It gives me whiplash and immediately takes me out of the story, killing all enjoyment. I don’t mind having certain scenes narrated by different characters as long as there is a clear separation between them. In this case though, we have some scenes where the POV literaly changes from paragraph to paragraph in the same scene, which is really off-putting and confusing.

My second issue was the way the author chose to write the accents different characters have. Like Sebastian, the French werewolf. While that would be fantastic in an audio book, it sounds very forced and unnatural written on a page. It is honestly hard to read, because the words are writen wrong to immiate an accent, but since I am reading this, not listening to it, half the time I have to stop and re-read to even understand what the author ment. There are other ways of showing that English isn’t someone’s native language.

My other issues are related to the characters and the general worldbuilding. 

Where it comes to the worldbuilding, there isn’t enough of it. It leaves more questions than answers. Like how does the Graveyard Watch fit into the rest of Brittish law enforcement or even government? Who does the Commander answer to? Who pays the bills? What is the chain of command here? What is the scop of their powers? What is their ultimate mission? Are they judge, jury, and executionner? Are they enforcers or also councelors whom the supernatural community can turn to for help? Are there other divisions of the Graveyard Watch in other countries? A centralized authority that overseas them? Who watches the watchers? No clue, because that’s never explained. 

My other issue is with the characters. We don’t know anything about them apart from their funny accents. The only one we get a bit of a backstory about is Domingo, but even then it’s not much. The characters are just kind of there… I don’t know their motivations, I don’t know what they do in their personal lives, I don’t know what their aspirations are. They move the story forward, talk in funny accents, and (in the case of Jocasta) swoon over every hot-looking guy that happens to cross her path. 

Speaking of Jocasta, I really hated her inner monologs that were written more like dialogs. I mean does she have split personality or what? Why does it sound like another voice is answering her in her head when she is having a moment? Also, for someone who is described as an intelligent and capable medical examiner, why is she suddenly turning into a detective? Her job is not to track suspects and apprehend them. Her job is to examine a scene and a body, if there is one. The whole plot of them following Victor to his secret lair was absolutely stupid. Why would she run after a known suspect, jump into his boat, follow him into a warehouse… all that while wearing an evening dress and high heels? What is she, Super Woman?

In the end, the negatives outweighted the positives for me, hence the rather low rating I’m giving this book. I will not be continuing with this series.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Fantasy, Reviews

Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

This book had promise. I was intrigued by the premise and the worldbuilding, so I dived into the story with a lot of excitement. Unfortunately, it fell short in the end, at least for me.

The world is criminally underutilized and and not fleshed out enough. I understand that it’s hard to dedicate a lot of time to worldbuilding in a 129 pages novella, but a few more details would have helped make this world real. As it stands, there are simply too many questions left unanswered. 

Like are the Elect just normal humans or are they descendants of the angels? The Fallen are descendants of the fallen angels, and they retain some physical attributes of that parentage, but for the Elects, apart from their blue eyes, there doesn’t seem to be any divine treads in their physiology. So are they humans playing pretend to be the eyes and ears to a silent and uninterested God? No clue. 

Also, when is this story taking place? Right after Lucifer’s fall or after Armageddon, when the armies of Hell and Heaven clash on Earth? Is this ancient history or post-apocalypse? I know that it might not be relevant to the story, but inquiring minds want to know. Also, the whole civilization seems very steam-punkish, only instead of steam, they mine the body of a fallen angel, like carrion. 

But I think my biggest issue with this book is that I absolutely hated the protagonist. Granted, none of the characters in this book are saints to say the least, but Celeste takes the cherry on top of the cake. She doesn’t hesitate to lie and cheat and use anyone and everyone around her to obtain what she wants. Sad thing is, what she wants doesn’t exist. She painted a picture of her sister as this innocent damsel that is perpetually in distress, and Celeste is the dragon guarding her. And she tried to lock her sister into that role, then acts all surprised when her sister turns out to be nothing like that.  

She ends up alienating all her friends, even going as far as accusing one of her friend’s lovers of murder just to save her sister. She betrays the trust of her own lover and uses him for her goal, oh and she steals the prized invention of another one of her friends. All this to get what in the end? Nothing. Celeste ends up with everything slipping between her fingers like dust. No family, no friends, no loved ones, no home. And good riddance, I say. It’s hard to root for a protagonist you despise.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.