Sempre by J.M. Darhower
Sempre by J.M. DarhowerMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I had a lot of faith in this book for the first 70 pages, but then I took a good look at how many pages it was (500+)and the word count (219,466) and grew nervous.
And I started wondering just how much filler this author had to use to make it to the end.
By that point I was already invested in this damn book, ya know? I mean I was in it for the long haul! I had already read 70 pages, so I was a quarter way through it and mentally my mind was ready for it to come to a good stopping place, ready for it to end. But no...
So, back to the book.
Sempre
So I guess it's important to note that the Marcel family is a bunch of Mafia men living in North Carolina. Oh, but they are "nice mafia" men because they feed Haven, cloth her, and allow her to clean up their messes.
Haven
Haven is just a little weakling, alright? I get she's been through hell and back, even had a talk with Hilter on Lucifers throne, but she still doesn't have a backbone at all. She's watched in bloody terror as her mother was raped, a girl was killed ect...Just anything you can think of, Haven's been through. A las' the first 100 pages is nothing more than a sympathy tale of a slave who refuses to pick up the phone and dial 911, or even spring for help at the football game. (And I get that she was raised captive so she's in culture shock, but come on...Really?) It's like "clean and cook Haven" and she's all:
Her character had no redeemable qualities at all and as heartless as this is going to sound, I didn't feel the slightest ounce of pity for her.
Carmine: Don't touch his stuff. Let him screw whoever he wants. Let him skip whatever classes he wants. Just stay the hell away from him in general, okay? He's PMSING 24/7. It's true. He admits that he is an asshole and loves orgasms. That being said, I found his character amusing. HAHA. He had a lot of comedic dialogue.
Dominic: Very bland. It's like he was only there to move along the story when explanations were needed for the reader. He didn't serve a purpose, honestly. Nothing to get emotionally attached to at least. Anytime Haven couldn't figure something out it would switch to "Dominic coming in the kitchen" and you just knew what was coming next.
Vincent: Ah, he was so-so for me. At times I liked him, but other times I was just shaking my head.
All and all, I give it a 2 star. The writing was a little off and a lot of it was repetitive. Aka, the cleaning, eating, going to Carmine's bedroom, sitting at the table, watching a movie ect...About 300 pages could've been cut from this book and it would have had a bigger impact, I think. It just kept going on and on and on. I was beginning to wonder if it would EVER stop...And the sex scenes or at least I think they were sex scenes, but I'm not sure because the stopping points were always abrupt and at the worst places imaginable.
I kept wondering how Haven would react when she and Carmine finally got to that place...
Sadly, I just don't know if they had sex or not. LOL. The author wasn't very descriptive with ANYTHING. Yes, I say ANYTHING. There was a lot of back story floating around, but not really any emotions. Some of the scenes were just too short and unnecessary. At one point I was hoping for Dominic to grow some balls and take a shot with Haven, but oh well. I get that Haven has this cultural impairment because of what she's been through, but her character was just downright depressing and boring. I continued to read for Carmine and Dom. That was it.
I read that the author of this book got signed and the book was heavily edited, but I will believe it when I see it. Heavily edited would mean 300 pages cut, 100,000 words lost, and better executions with scene endings and chapters. I'm not saying this book didn't merit a deal, but I'm curious as to how an editor read through all of that and made a good call as to why this book deserved a publishing deal, as opposed to other indie author's who, quite frankly, wouldn't need as much work.
This book was good and disappointing at the same time. It never got to that level for me. I felt nothing. Some told me to wait until it was released in Nov, but I wanted to see what the head honcho's thought was so great to P2P. I came, I saw...Not really impressed. The editor definitely has his or her work cut out.
2 stars out of 3. I don't rate fan fiction on a 5 star scale. Sorry. On to the next book...
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