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Torture to Her Soul by J.M. Darhower
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
ARC was generously provided in exchange for honest review
NOTE: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!!!!!
I'm torn straight down the middle. I like Naz, but I can't stand Karissa. And it's because of this very reason that I rated this book 2 stars.
Never have I read a book (aside from Gabriel's Inferno), where the lead female is just so damn pathetic, weak, and annoying. When I think of weak in terms of a lead female in a book series, I think of Bella Swan. Which is probably why I pictured Kristen Stewart as Karissa. (NOTE: That probably didn't help much in terms of trying to like Karissa's character...)
KARISSA:
NAZ:
The good, the bad, and the ugly...
1) Karissa is a whiny, immature bitch. For the first 25% of this book she walked around with earbuds in her ears pouting like a 3 year old. I'm serious, I have never seen a character (aside from Julia in Gabriel's Inferno) cry so much in my life. This girl gave Julia a run for her money at every turn. You will never see a more irritating female lead. Anything Karissa can do wrong and cry about, she does. She loves Tinkerbell, and when Naz tells her his opinion regarding Peter Pan possibly killing The Lost Boys, this bitch loses it. She rips her Tinkerbell "Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust" poster off of his wall and shreds it.
2) Karissa is just a nosy bitch. LOL. She wants the truth, but when it's handed to her she loses all rational thought.
3) Daddy is dead. And even though Karissa knows he was a bad man and didn't really give a shit about him, she still expects some sympathy.
4) Karissa is stupid. Period. Naz is a killer. It's his art, his work. You don't go to the police when he gets shot. Stupid...Stupid...Stupid. All of that work trying to convince readers that she was smart (NYC ect...) went out the door the moment she spilled her guts.
"I told the police because I was trying to save my mother...."
5) Karissa becomes some 12 year old fan girl when he calls her baby.
I'm not too ashamed to admit that I read solely because of Naz. It was well written and the plot was very structured. But I don't have it in me to give more than 2 stars.
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Monster in His Eyes by J.M. Darhower
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Shew...
I didn't see a lot of hope for this book when I started reading it on my Kindle. Why? Because there was too much description and not enough dialogue. By the time I reached 62% I was about to call it a day. Nothing was happening, I was getting bored.
But then as I crossed into 65%, all of the shit started hitting the fan.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
This book has everything.
John: A deranged, nonexistent father who has spent the last 19 years hiding.
It's got a paranoid mother who just wants to find peace but can't because she's harboring a dark secret.
Karissa: your typical lead female, who is just downright stupid, naive, and a childish as they come. The typical damsel in distress. (Sorry, sad but true.) Oh, and a pushover. She "goes with the flow" as Naz has mentioned several times in the book.
Naz: the leading male who is 1) rich. 2) handsome. 3) a psycho...oh, and 4) a hitman/murderer.
The writing was, muah, okay I guess. There was a lot of repetitiveness.
"Why are you doing that?"
and he'd say
"Why am I doing what?"
Or
"Huh." followed by "What?"
Some of the dialogue was really boring and what little there was was overshadowed by the descriptions. (Too much descriptions in between dialogues.)
If you can make it to 65% of the book, if you have the patience, than it might turn out to be a good read for it. Likewise, I can see where some people wouldn't want to invest the time for a puny 20% of good manuscript.
I think there was so much hype built around this book. Too much really. The prologue was very "off-putting." You never really see who this monster is until the last 20 pages or so. Throughout the entire book I was trying to figure out why he was such a monster and couldn't find anything. There were hints dropped here and there, but as far as concrete facts that he was a quote "monster" there was nothing. At one point he choked her in bed, but she liked it, so I didn't really see how that made Naz a monster. He wasn't as controlling as perhaps the author wanted him to be. Honestly, Naz just didn't act like he cared as much about Karissa as she cared about him.
Had the last 20 pages not happened, I would've given this book a 1 star. Seriously, the first 65% of it is boring as hell. Naz and Karissa go out to eat, they screw, he picks her up, they go out to eat again, they screw, they go back to his house, they screw again, they eat again, yada yada. Basically they: eat, screw, sleep...and that's about it.
"I wanted to ask him...." <---i data-blogger-escaped-a="" data-blogger-escaped-after="" data-blogger-escaped-always="" data-blogger-escaped-and="" data-blogger-escaped-annoying.="" data-blogger-escaped-ask="" data-blogger-escaped-book.="" data-blogger-escaped-br="" data-blogger-escaped-but="" data-blogger-escaped-cannot="" data-blogger-escaped-character.="" data-blogger-escaped-did="" data-blogger-escaped-for="" data-blogger-escaped-go.="" data-blogger-escaped-got="" data-blogger-escaped-her="" data-blogger-escaped-how="" data-blogger-escaped-in="" data-blogger-escaped-it="" data-blogger-escaped-karissa="" data-blogger-escaped-lets="" data-blogger-escaped-little="" data-blogger-escaped-many="" data-blogger-escaped-nothing="" data-blogger-escaped-pushover="" data-blogger-escaped-s="" data-blogger-escaped-say="" data-blogger-escaped-says="" data-blogger-escaped-she="" data-blogger-escaped-the="" data-blogger-escaped-this="" data-blogger-escaped-times="" data-blogger-escaped-to="" data-blogger-escaped-wants="" data-blogger-escaped-while="">The flow is really slow and the "voice" is a bit Anna Steelish, if you get my drift. There's no "Oh my..." but there's a lot of 'oh fuck."
The author also had this habit of writing something in the dialogue and then bringing it to pass within a few pages.
For example: Like when Naz tells Karissa she'll eventually be able to walk into a restaurant and not have to wait for service. Within three pages Karissa is out to eat with Melody and it's noted "Oh, the boss remembers me and I don't have to wait for a table. Naz was right."
Karissa's favorite word in this book is definitely "Why?" She never asks what she wants to ask, but every time Naz speaks she's all "Why?" Which I don't get because she never does anything if she doesn't like his response anyways. So what's the point of knowing the truth, right?
"Why do you get service right away?"
"Why do you like me?"
"Why me?"
"Why did you get me roses?"
"Why do you want me to cook ramen noodles?"
Why, why, why, why, why....SIGHS.
I was waiting for a "why do you want to put you penis down there, why?"
But don't think Naz is out of the clear. He has his own favorite phrases too.
"Huh." and "Because I know you Karissa."
I gave this book two stars. I wanted to give it three but I couldn't find it in me to do it. (Not with the repetitiveness, awkward phrasing, and constant "I wanted to ask....")
On to the next book.
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Sempre by J.M. Darhower
My 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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