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I am rather enjoying going through the current HarlequinTeen series. The look and flavour of these novels are simply fascinating to read! This book I found at Target, at about $14.
I picked 'Twisted' by Gena Showalter because it had a beautiful cover. The colour is gorgeous, the stance of the models electric and it looks like an awesome series to read. Plus an added dust jacket on the front that said "free ebook!" What it fails to mention is that to actually get your free ebook, you have to cough up all your contact details and you're not allowed to opt out of the 'feel free to contact me as you like' clause. Hmph.
So, I did not get to get my 'free' ebook.
Despite that little disappointment, how did I feel about this book? Well... it was very obviously a middle book. The characters seemed to have had their definition completed in the previous one? Two? books, and so there was very little development or definition added in this book. Despite that, we spend an awful lot of time inside their heads where they angst, whine, turn into different people, do unsavoury things, blame each other for it, and remain very much in lust with each other for the entire novel.
At least someone got laid.
I found it rather hard sometimes to figure out what was actually happening. We were so deep in the guilt and self-disgust that I often had no idea what was actually going on outside the grey matter. I think I could sum it up as "a bunch of teenage supernaturals/supranaturals run around doing stuff for quests starts in the previous books and which don't really get very resolved during this book."
I'm a bit disappointed in a way; I enjoyed Twilight, as I really enjoyed hanging out with the characters. The basic level of plot is basically the same, the level of emo angst is probably actually lower than in Twisted, but the key difference is that I enjoyed hanging out with Alice, and Rose and even Edward, despite his stalkery fetishy thing. In this novel, the characters were just dreary. I don't know if it's because I am reading this out of order, but seriously dreary. The vampirism is tiresome, people can't communicate to share a cigarette (metaphorically) and people do dumb things and then blame each other for it.
And I'm supposed to feel for these people? Or be interested in what they're doing?
Anyway, the language was fine and once again my highlighters just got dustier. I was mildly disappointed. The writing was perfectly acceptable, I think I just had problems with the plot. The plot sort of settles as a great empty frame in a desert, and in theory is strung with the bright ribbons of the characters to make it interesting. Unfortunately, the ribbons seem to be dull grey and black, and with no colour to spice the themes, I've already forgotten half the book and I only finished it an hour ago.
Plus I didn't really enjoy the ending. It just emphasized that this was a middle book, marking time until it's all supposed to get interesting. There was no solid information on the cover to tell me where this book fits into the Intertwined series either, just that it was an Intertwined novel. By rights, this should have meant the book was fine as a stand alone novel, however this was very much not the case. I'd say this book needs a warm audience (people who are already into the series) to be successful. As a cold audience, I just felt glad when it was over.
Sarah P
I picked 'Twisted' by Gena Showalter because it had a beautiful cover. The colour is gorgeous, the stance of the models electric and it looks like an awesome series to read. Plus an added dust jacket on the front that said "free ebook!" What it fails to mention is that to actually get your free ebook, you have to cough up all your contact details and you're not allowed to opt out of the 'feel free to contact me as you like' clause. Hmph.
So, I did not get to get my 'free' ebook.
Despite that little disappointment, how did I feel about this book? Well... it was very obviously a middle book. The characters seemed to have had their definition completed in the previous one? Two? books, and so there was very little development or definition added in this book. Despite that, we spend an awful lot of time inside their heads where they angst, whine, turn into different people, do unsavoury things, blame each other for it, and remain very much in lust with each other for the entire novel.
At least someone got laid.
I found it rather hard sometimes to figure out what was actually happening. We were so deep in the guilt and self-disgust that I often had no idea what was actually going on outside the grey matter. I think I could sum it up as "a bunch of teenage supernaturals/supranaturals run around doing stuff for quests starts in the previous books and which don't really get very resolved during this book."
I'm a bit disappointed in a way; I enjoyed Twilight, as I really enjoyed hanging out with the characters. The basic level of plot is basically the same, the level of emo angst is probably actually lower than in Twisted, but the key difference is that I enjoyed hanging out with Alice, and Rose and even Edward, despite his stalkery fetishy thing. In this novel, the characters were just dreary. I don't know if it's because I am reading this out of order, but seriously dreary. The vampirism is tiresome, people can't communicate to share a cigarette (metaphorically) and people do dumb things and then blame each other for it.
And I'm supposed to feel for these people? Or be interested in what they're doing?
Anyway, the language was fine and once again my highlighters just got dustier. I was mildly disappointed. The writing was perfectly acceptable, I think I just had problems with the plot. The plot sort of settles as a great empty frame in a desert, and in theory is strung with the bright ribbons of the characters to make it interesting. Unfortunately, the ribbons seem to be dull grey and black, and with no colour to spice the themes, I've already forgotten half the book and I only finished it an hour ago.
Plus I didn't really enjoy the ending. It just emphasized that this was a middle book, marking time until it's all supposed to get interesting. There was no solid information on the cover to tell me where this book fits into the Intertwined series either, just that it was an Intertwined novel. By rights, this should have meant the book was fine as a stand alone novel, however this was very much not the case. I'd say this book needs a warm audience (people who are already into the series) to be successful. As a cold audience, I just felt glad when it was over.
Sarah P
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