It's a YA urban fantasy with a high school and town full of supernatural beings (vampires/angels/werewolves etc) and supernatural hunters called 'ashers'. Ellicia herself is a protector (of the hell gates, what that involves is never precisely stated in the first book).
I understand sarcasm and snark seem to be quite popular in YA fantasy (and a fair bit of adult fantasy, especially the post-Dresden urban fantasy). I don't know if it's easier to write than standard dialogue, but it does get very repetitive.
There are so many shameless homages to other fantasy series and archetypes in this book that I found myself thinking 'I definitely saw this in Buffy/Twilight/True Blood/insert flavor of the month supernatural series'.
Ellicia herself is thoroughly unpleasant, sarcastic, mean and generally annoying. Many of the characters are very two dimensional and there were some serious plot holes which were never satisfactorily addressed.
There are glimpses of technical expertise in the writing and this could have been a fine book.
Two stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.
No comments:
Post a Comment