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A review by eiion
Until We Shatter by Kate Dylan
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
2.5
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
This book had a really cool premise - I was super excited going into it, and had really high hopes for being sucked into the world of Shades, Hues, and the Gray. Unfortunately, it didn't really work out for me.
The book felt unfinished. Kate Dylan has a nice writing style, and I have to say: she is fantastic at writing action scenes and at portraying character movement and interaction with the world. Emotions fell a bit short for me, and I don't feel like foreshadowing was present in this book much or at all during the times it definitely needed it.
The magic system wasn't fleshed out to a point that I felt like I understood it, and more information was constantly being thrown at us as if it was something we should have known, or just a normal thing. It was inconsistent in telling us what people could or couldn't do, and didn't feel developed. As soon as something needed to happen, there was suddenly magic that could explain or help it. I just felt like the worldbuilding was unfortunately a bit lackluster.
The characters were fine, but not amazing. Cemmy, our main character was annoying at times, and I felt like her motivations and the way she navigated the world was both unrealistic and incredibly grating. She couldn't stop talking about Magdalena (even though we didn't even learn what happened until 70% of the way through the book!), and seemed to have some really crappy ways of dealing with her emotions and how she channeled her jealousy towards Novi and anger at the others. The side characters were fine, but they all kind of felt a bit bland, a means to an end. And the romance was similar - it was boring, and felt really forced. There wasn't natural tension between Cem and Chase (and Chase was kind of a dick the whole way through), they just sort of happened, and I didn't feel like there was anything there that justified it.
Plotwise, there was definitely a good outline there, I really like the concept and the ideas, it was just excuted weakly. All of the twists and turns felt forced, out of left field, and never did I feel like there was ever a hint or backstory to the things that happened. The last 2 or 3 chapters went ridiculously fast, and it was just not easy to keep up or fun to keep reading.
I do think that this book could be great, and I love the concept - there's a lot here that I think works and could work. I just don't think that this book delivered what it promised, and it wasn't a personal favourite of mine.
This book had a really cool premise - I was super excited going into it, and had really high hopes for being sucked into the world of Shades, Hues, and the Gray. Unfortunately, it didn't really work out for me.
The book felt unfinished. Kate Dylan has a nice writing style, and I have to say: she is fantastic at writing action scenes and at portraying character movement and interaction with the world. Emotions fell a bit short for me, and I don't feel like foreshadowing was present in this book much or at all during the times it definitely needed it.
The magic system wasn't fleshed out to a point that I felt like I understood it, and more information was constantly being thrown at us as if it was something we should have known, or just a normal thing. It was inconsistent in telling us what people could or couldn't do, and didn't feel developed. As soon as something needed to happen, there was suddenly magic that could explain or help it. I just felt like the worldbuilding was unfortunately a bit lackluster.
The characters were fine, but not amazing. Cemmy, our main character was annoying at times, and I felt like her motivations and the way she navigated the world was both unrealistic and incredibly grating. She couldn't stop talking about Magdalena (even though we didn't even learn what happened until 70% of the way through the book!), and seemed to have some really crappy ways of dealing with her emotions and how she channeled her jealousy towards Novi and anger at the others. The side characters were fine, but they all kind of felt a bit bland, a means to an end. And the romance was similar - it was boring, and felt really forced. There wasn't natural tension between Cem and Chase (and Chase was kind of a dick the whole way through), they just sort of happened, and I didn't feel like there was anything there that justified it.
Plotwise, there was definitely a good outline there, I really like the concept and the ideas, it was just excuted weakly. All of the twists and turns felt forced, out of left field, and never did I feel like there was ever a hint or backstory to the things that happened. The last 2 or 3 chapters went ridiculously fast, and it was just not easy to keep up or fun to keep reading.
I do think that this book could be great, and I love the concept - there's a lot here that I think works and could work. I just don't think that this book delivered what it promised, and it wasn't a personal favourite of mine.