Elle’s Reviews > Fateless > Status Update

SO MUCH INFO-DUMPING. SO MUCH "AS YOU KNOW".

MC is upset she's not taken seriously, but also is constantly disrespectful & sarcastic with her boss (& presumably all other authority figures, too). Wow, I wonder why they treat you like a kid, you dumbass. There's nothing remotely likeable about MC yet.

We finally get a goal and stakes AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER. What was the point of all the filler before that? ¬_¬

How bad/stilted/unrealistic is the dialogue? MC's boss just told her 4 times to do one thing/action. Not spread apart, not because MC hesitated or refused. As one compact dialogue paragraph. "Do A. Do A. You know I want A. Do A." (Also this is an established rule the boss has, so the fact that MC wasn't already doing this when approaching him also just makes her look either dumb or stupidly rebellious for no reason.)

I'll also add that the prose is not engaging. It's weirdly stilted at times, especially the dialogue which doesn't sound natural but more like the author is trying to give everyone quotable sounds-bytes.

... Ok, & now author is literally just stealing from Assassin's Creed with thief's guild having white cloaks & missing third fingers for the stealth knife. Ubisoft could file a copyright claim, easily.

Over 10 pages in and I still don't know the MC's immediate goal ("my task", "my destination"), or if there are any stakes. Just a useless conversation, some jumping over rooftops b/c author wants to write YA Assassin's Creed, and plenty of info-dumping about the world. Why would anyone care about MC at this point?

If I were browsing in a bookstore, I would have put this down & moved on to something else by now.