Well. I wanted to like this one, and from the blurb and the cover, I was sure that I would, and the opening chapter was good. New Orleans, voodoo, something vaguely supernatural...sounds like my cup of tea.

Within a few more pages, I found myself thinking "well, that escalated quickly" as suddenly we're in the second civil war and blacks are being dragged out of their homes and taken to concentration camps. All non-White races are classed as black (hmm). In the midst of this, we discover our main character likes the smell of death and disease, and feels no sadness about loved ones dying. Not because she's an unemotional sociopath, but because she's special. She also heals like Wolverine and sees the dead.

Throw in some gods and then a whole new point of view a third through the book, but only until they meet up with the important people, then some more race wars, joining up with the bad guys going back to the good guys, doing this some more, and eventually our heroine making her mind up who she is.

Basically I didn't really care. None of the characters had different personalities (aside from a few extremes of Good Guys and Bad Guys!) and that includes our heroine Jetta and her friend Tyler. The chapters from other people povs read exactly the same as Jetta's, and despite the character stating she was 14 at one point, it had all been so simplified and naive I had been certain she was... Maybe 10? It turned out to not be the voice of a young girl once I realised Tyler sounded the same. The book basically struck me as a continuous description of he said, she said, he did this, then this. They did this, and then she thought that, and I was really pretty distracted from the storyline by noticing that.

I wanted to like it. I like stories where the gods come to earth, I like young adult books with female leads, and I like what the author said at the back about why she wrote it and what she feels the worlds needs to fix (I'm trying not to spoiler, so sorry for vagueness). I just needed less of a scrambled up plot, and characterisation. I felt very little for the people no matter which side they were on, I'm not sure about the white=bad black =good that came through, and just as I was on board with one thing, it became something else. (Right, so civil war, camps, bids for freedom, gotcha! Oh no I see, gods and creepy silent dead army and living in a graveyard. Okay.).

This is my first book by Willow Rose and so far I'm not leaping to read another, though I do usually like to try a couple of books before I make up my mind on an author.

I received this epub from NetGalley in return for an honest and unbiased review. ( )

Well. I wanted to like this one, and from the blurb and the cover, I was sure that I would, and the opening chapter was good. New Orleans, voodoo, something vaguely supernatural...sounds like my cup of tea.

Within a few more pages, I found myself thinking "well, that escalated quickly" as suddenly we're in the second civil war and blacks are being dragged out of their homes and taken to concentration camps. All non-White races are classed as black (hmm). In the midst of this, we discover our main character likes the smell of death and disease, and feels no sadness about loved ones dying. Not because she's an unemotional sociopath, but because she's special. She also heals like Wolverine and sees the dead.

Throw in some gods and then a whole new point of view a third through the book, but only until they meet up with the important people, then some more race wars, joining up with the bad guys going back to the good guys, doing this some more, and eventually our heroine making her mind up who she is.

Basically I didn't really care. None of the characters had different personalities (aside from a few extremes of Good Guys and Bad Guys!) and that includes our heroine Jetta and her friend Tyler. The chapters from other people povs read exactly the same as Jetta's, and despite the character stating she was 14 at one point, it had all been so simplified and naive I had been certain she was... Maybe 10? It turned out to not be the voice of a young girl once I realised Tyler sounded the same. The book basically struck me as a continuous description of he said, she said, he did this, then this. They did this, and then she thought that, and I was really pretty distracted from the storyline by noticing that.

I wanted to like it. I like stories where the gods come to earth, I like young adult books with female leads, and I like what the author said at the back about why she wrote it and what she feels the worlds needs to fix (I'm trying not to spoiler, so sorry for vagueness). I just needed less of a scrambled up plot, and characterisation. I felt very little for the people no matter which side they were on, I'm not sure about the white=bad black =good that came through, and just as I was on board with one thing, it became something else. (Right, so civil war, camps, bids for freedom, gotcha! Oh no I see, gods and creepy silent dead army and living in a graveyard. Okay.).

This is my first book by Willow Rose and so far I'm not leaping to read another, though I do usually like to try a couple of books before I make up my mind on an author.

I received this epub from NetGalley in return for an honest and unbiased review. ( )

EXCEPTIONAL ( )