Liz > Recent Status Updates

So, I knew going in that Mariana Zapata is the queen of the slooooooooowest of slow burns, but almost 40% in before the first vaguely friendly interaction is a bit much. Especially since the two MCs didn't even talk without being forced to until about 25% in (I didn't think to check the exact % at the time).

What was I thinking? This is already sooooooooo dumb!

Not even 5% in, and I already feel a 1-star review coming based on the hypocritical jackass of a male lead alone. You can either think that money and the trappings of money don't define someone's worth and make them worthy of respect, or you can think you're better than everyone with less money than you. Thinking the first only applies to you makes you an idiot and an asshole.

7% in and already a bunch of eyerollingly stupid, nonsensical gibberish. I'm pretty sure the reason Elle Kennedy's books have such high ratings on goodreads is because the readers have self selected down to the ones who think poorly written insta-lust full of crude sex scenes are great reading material. The relationships in her books are the emotional equivalent of sex with no foreplay.

Okay, I guess this is my fault for assuming, but with the dual POV being Jessica and Imogen, I kind of thought I was going to get an adorable fish out of water queer romance. I didn't figure out that was wrong until the completely gratuitous "this guy's so hot" description in the Starbucks.

I guess if they look so alike that they can be mistaken for each other, a romance would have been a bit awkward...

Oof. The writing is making my eyes roll so hard I might lose them. It's heavy-handed and amateurish.

It's not a good sign when, less than 5% in, I already dislike the main character based on her rationale for the choices that comprise the entire premise for the book, and I think that every single full grown adult I've encountered behaves like an adolescent moron...

Ugh. This reads like bad a fan fic of two absolutely boring strangers who bumped into each other in a coffee shop and spilled a drink. In other words, the world's longest and most superfluous game of making up life stories while people watching. Also, excessive PSL (pumpkin spice late) mentions in the first few pages really hammered home just how basic this is going to be. I should have trusted my instincts on that.

Our opening scene is the male MC soliciting and murdering a junkie prostitute for sexually arousing him. I don't care how on brand this is. I don't understand how, even if your thing is being turned on by the laughably 2-dimensional (twirling their mustaches cartoonish) villain leads of McIntyre's books, this could in any universe be considered an attractive quality in a man.

Please let this book end. I can't bring myself to give up when I've already sunk so much time into this monstrosity, because I refuse to allow any chance that the reason I didn't "appreciate" it, is that I didn't finish. My primary complaint is that approximately 20% of this book is actually moving the plot forward or further developing any characters or relationships of any consequence whatsoever to the story.

8% in, and I'm already regretting this. Retellings with a villain anti-hero is a particular soft spot for me, but I've already encountered multiple conflations of sex and violence. I don't think it's possible to redeem someone who has fantasized about violently fucking a woman on top of her father's corpse. Seriously. Not exaggerating, that is the first thought Hook has about Wendy when he recognizes her.

Warning signs:
1. System that is allegedly the backbone of a society's way of life, but is ludicrously designed to waste lives for literally no reason at all. Murdering other cadets? Sure!
2. Caricature of a bad boy villain? Check.
3. Brooding hottie with familial bad blood against our heroine? Yup.
4. Hot all around good guy (boring) childhood crush in a position to protect our heroine? Do I need to answer that one?

I've already got a bad feeling about this one. I'm sensing a 2 star read that will piss me off enough to want to give it 1 star, but I'll feel too bad to do that.

I've barely started, and all the purple prose is already making me cringe. Let's hope something half as interesting as the author is making it out to be happens soon...

If your main character's "heart has never hurt so much" upon seeing her beaten up, but certain to fully recover, boyfriend, even though her mother died very recently and she missed the chance to see her one last time, there is something wrong. Either extremely short term memory is at work here, or the author believes that teenagers really care that little about anything else once they fall in lurve... 🙄

Why am I doing this to myself? I knew this was a poor decision, but it's like a car crash by the side of the road; it's hard not to look just to see how bad it is...

Pretty sure I'm going to DNF this, which I almost never do. I'm so very disappointed, considering all the hype. The first rule of SciFi sagas: try to at least get your hooks in the reader before boring them to death and proving just how bad prose can be...

It's a bad sign when, just a couple of chapters in, I already know at least 3 reasons I can't stand this book and will struggle to finish it, regardless of how short it is. The ability of this book to numb one's brain is so impressive that I managed to be bored during an assassination attempt, which occurred within the first couple of scenes introducing our heroine...

Awkward forcing of marine similes and painfully overdone narration. My mother died at the same age as Eureka’s, and I can identify with the realistic situation of a girl that is simultaneously angry and wounded by her isolation, while exacerbating it with nearly every action, and still recognize sloppy writing and an inability to make your character sympathetic, even when she’s being self involved.