Where to even start with this book? Good grief.
I think I want to start with this new genre that I've just learned about: "New Adult" fantasy. I hate it. It is, almost transparently, just YA fantasy but the author wanted to include adult content. That's it - that's the only difference. Have you ever been reading a YA fantasy book and wanted to waste eight-or-so pages from time-to-time with unnecessary adult content? Have you ever read from a heroine's perspective and thought, "what if she just admired his muscles... one more time?" Well,
go have a blast. Otherwise, hang around while I blast everything I hated about this book (It's not just the adult content).
In this story we follow Cat, a girl with the ability to tell when others are lying. Her ability to do so brings her into the eye of kidnapping-abuser-dreamboat Griffin, who, well, kidnaps and abuses her. Now, I expected this book to go somewhere like Shadow and Bone, where the heroine, initially enthralled by the attractive man who holds her captive, realizes his abuses and turns on him. It's not the best narrative (though I'm doing Shadow and Bone a disservice here, it's a great book), but I hoped that's where we were going. That hope was dispelled by the 3rd time Cat thought about Griffin's muscles (only 20 pages in).
So let's take a moment to get past the fact that Griffin ties Cat to him with a magic rope, forces her to sleep and bathe with him, and you know, kidnaps her, and just dissect him as a character. He genuinely might be the worst written character I've ever read in a book. Take your friend's quiet but incredibly jealous, angry boyfriend, make him meaner and more possessive, slap a six-pack on him and you have someone that is more fleshed-out than this character. I mean - he has fewer lines in this book than many of the side characters. If you're going to give me this poorly-constructed book that focuses around two character's falling in love, you have to remember to create two characters. Heck, Griffin's comrades-in-arms (read: kidnapping buddies) are more fleshed out than he is.
Now let's talk about Cat. Cat is, at best, inconsistently written. I chide YA fantasy writers constantly for making their characters do things that seem out-of-character to push the plot. Bouchet takes this idea and runs with it all the way to the bank, several times over. In the first chapter, Cat goes from keeping a secret about herself from her friends for eleven years to telling it to two strangers, independently, within five pages. She hates the man she's tied to for kidnapping her, but also loves him dearly. She has nightmares about abuse from her mother but sleeps best next to the man who abuses her. Everything is just wrong, and it feels wrong, and... I just can't do it with this book.
There's also a few points that I made in my last review (Furyborn) that this book again takes and runs with. First, a solid 75% of this book is the characters travelling. It just never stops, and it makes the pacing of this book just drag as they travel forever and never advance the plot. Additionally, this book just yeets Greek mythology into it like it doesn't mean a thing. Bouchet took the grocery cart to Olympus, said, "I'll have.. Poseidon... and people love Cerberus... that should be good," and then inserted them into the book with no new twist, no context, just, there. Also, this book does the same thing as Furyborn and just, ends. Boom, book over. This one is even more egregious though because it comes after TWENTY STRAIGHT PAGES OF ADULT CONTENT. Actually it's worse than that. It's eight pages of adult content, a one page break (making me think, "phew, it's over"), then eleven pages of adult content, one page, then the book ends. It was so jarring I had a hard time believing that's where it ended.
Before I wrap up here I'll make a quick comment on plot and worldbuilding -- it's just lazy. It's barely worth talking about because it seems like so little thought was put into it. I can make a world like this sitting here. I smash Greek mythology onto a fantasy map, make my characters have a few super powers, and go on my merry way. As for plot, it exists solely to put the characters together and, maybe get you invested in them? I genuinely don't know - the points are already fading from my mind.
Final thoughts: This book is just about the worst of what YA (or "New Adult") fantasy has to offer. A hastily constructed plot, flat, inconsistent characters, and messages that are just generally damaging to put out into the world. I've given it a half star because it wasn't unreadable, but I was tempted to give it none. Look forward to a few reviews of better books on the horizon.
-Michael
P.S. I wont be reading the sequels.
