Okay, don't shout at me, I already feel bad enough for giving a book such a low rating. I know how much work goes into writing a book and I can usually always find something positive but this just... sigh.
The concept won me over, I wanted The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks meets Agatha Christie. Privileged teenagers in a secluded countryside mansion, tensions and hatreds brewing under the surface until somebody draws blood. It's a hell of a compelling premise, which I think is why I felt so let down. I was ready to ADORE this book, but the execution was horrendous.
The was absolutely no atmosphere. In place of haunting description and compelling visuals, was just a bunch of film references. Little context, I'm a film student so I love a little film reference as much as anyone, but I don't want one on every second page! And it was in place of description, for example, there's a sentence along the lines of 'we drove up to the building, ever seen Brideshead Revisited? It looked like that'. Well no I haven't, so how about you do your job as the author, and describe what it looks like? It was so bizarre, it was like the author wanted credit for research she'd done or something, but all it achieved was making me wish I watching those films instead of trudging through this mess of a book. I also had no connection to any of the characters, the MC was juvenile (yes I know it's YA but there's a limit) and I was never at any point wondering where the story would go.
Ultimately, this is one of the most awful reading experiences I've ever had, I wouldn't have minded so much if it was just a bad book and not my taste, but I think the reason I disliked it so much was because it has the potential to be one of my favourites, and it let me down so badly.
The concept won me over, I wanted The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks meets Agatha Christie. Privileged teenagers in a secluded countryside mansion, tensions and hatreds brewing under the surface until somebody draws blood. It's a hell of a compelling premise, which I think is why I felt so let down. I was ready to ADORE this book, but the execution was horrendous.
The was absolutely no atmosphere. In place of haunting description and compelling visuals, was just a bunch of film references. Little context, I'm a film student so I love a little film reference as much as anyone, but I don't want one on every second page! And it was in place of description, for example, there's a sentence along the lines of 'we drove up to the building, ever seen Brideshead Revisited? It looked like that'. Well no I haven't, so how about you do your job as the author, and describe what it looks like? It was so bizarre, it was like the author wanted credit for research she'd done or something, but all it achieved was making me wish I watching those films instead of trudging through this mess of a book. I also had no connection to any of the characters, the MC was juvenile (yes I know it's YA but there's a limit) and I was never at any point wondering where the story would go.
Ultimately, this is one of the most awful reading experiences I've ever had, I wouldn't have minded so much if it was just a bad book and not my taste, but I think the reason I disliked it so much was because it has the potential to be one of my favourites, and it let me down so badly.