Stacey Marie Brown

So I stumbled upon this book again and thought now that I do audiobook re-reads I might give it another try. Maybe even listen to the whole series. As I thought, the younger me definitely enjoyed it more back then (gave it 3 stars).

It is a very typical I-am-not-like-the-other-girls heroine and the bad boy love interest. Some stupid parts. It does have some interesting different aspects to it, though. Also manages to be funny at times. But what is making me want to continue is definitely the ending which could really make this series into something deeper.

Right now I give 2,5 but it feels closer to 2, so I rounded it down.… (altro)

I found this book generally enjoyable.
I find it very hard to entirely avoid spoilerly stuff when talking about the core points I want to address so I will only put strong spoilers in tags. I believe all the mild spoilers were either visible from a mile away to the reader anyway or only make sense after you read past the point in the story so they won't ruin anything.
I enjoyed the slow-burn romance and found it relatable which was a refreshing change from the rest of the lot (uf&pnr).
I had a hard time with the whole out of the blue "Electric-Storm" thingy that somehow toppled some tower. It was never explained why everyone without further information just took the entire thing as a well-known weather(?) phenomenon. It sounded like some kind of combination of weird lightning tempest able to fell a single tower at its base combined with a somehow localized solar storm. As a reader, we are never even told what exactly happened.

A pet peeve of mine that was present in all action scenes was the weird turn-based order of events where one character has his turn and can now freely deal out one action without anyone reacting, then the next and so on. This frequently resulted in a very weird and unbelievable flow and caused a lot of eye rolling on my part.
Another common flaw was Zoey's fighting prowess and reaction to stressful situations. She apparently was through something close to the worst shit that can happen to a kid and she had to toughen up a lot very early on but nothing of that is reflected in any of her actions. She doesn't win a single fight in the entire book without major help and repeatedly brushes by major hysteria. Her entire personality would've made a lot more sense without this bloodthirsty street-fighter past. It just wasn't necessary and would've been easy to remove/leave out as well. It's not required for anything in the story so far.

Another minor thing. Just because you point out a lazy writer trope doesn't make it less cheap if you use them yourself later anyway.

I liked how Zoey is able to defuse Ryker's threats just with hopelessness. I could really relate to this state of numb despair where you don't really want to die but you don't have anything to live for either so just drift with the flow but are not scared by death anymore. What annoyed me was that later on when she was again in a similarly hopeless situation tied to a radiator expecting abuse, rape and torture and she believed the only other person that kept her afloat dead she didn't react in a similar way at all. She didn't try or even plan to escape through her own or at least mutual death for the bastard responsible. That entire thing felt all wrong to me.

The ending was pretty abrupt and I can imagine that this might be quite frustrating for readers without fast access to the next book.
I won't continue the series. I just never became all that interested in the world or the entire DMG business. In the end I only cared about seeing how (hopefully) Zoey grows and where the relationship to Ryker might go.… (altro)