I can’t. It’s no use, I just can’t finish this book. The
characters, their contrived, useless conflicts, the intriguing world that is
hopelessly undeveloped and, above all, the immense cliché abuse just defeat me,
Not only can I not finish this book but, since I was tempted to DNF it after a
mere 10%, going any further would be unfair to the other DNF books that I
finally gave up on.
Now, saying you’re tempted to give up by 10% is pretty
extreme – but this book begins with so many of the classic clichés, tropes and
general fails that I was cringing.
Firstly, we have a prologue paragraph telling us there’s
a law that forbids vampires and witches from consorting.
Right, folks, who can tell me what the plot is about? If
you answered “it’s about a vampire and a witch falling in love” have a cookie.
I have no idea why we have this new habit of giving away the plot in the
opening prelude, especially when you have damn little plot, but it has to end.
Then we have a girl, bullied at school with dead parents
(mark off two more points on your checklist). She has super special powers she
just doesn’t want because she wants to be normal, wooooe! Yes, it’s another
teenager with super powers who just wants to be like everyone else – like every
teenager never. Mark another cliché off the checklist. Oh and she has a book
that may guide her about her specialness but she just can’t bring herself to read
it because it’s just too awful
She goes to a new school and meets a vampire (no he’s not labelled as such but after the opening prelude why even pretend this is supposed to be a secret). And ZOMG he’s hot and awesome and hot and sexy and hot and has an amazing voice and he’s hot – this goes on for a few paragraphs.
Then we switch to his POV - actually, brief interlude for a side rant: the book keeps doing this. There’s no chapter break or anything else, we’re suddenly in Christian’s head rather than Victoria’s – suddenly her thoughts are a mystery and his are an open book. Then we whiplash back again – no rhyme or reason, no necessity, just constantly switching back and forth clumsily to allow more exposition
