“Once upon a time, in the final days before Salt and Marsh Witch War, four Boneless Mercies turned their backs on the death trade, and went west, seeking immortality.”

The Mercy trade is a life of death, and it is a trade only for woman. This book follows four Mercies who travel town to town performing mercy killings, never revenge or vengeance. It's a hard and sad life, one that makes them outcasts from everyone they come across, they have themselves and no one else. But one day they decide to change their path, to seek a life that could change it all. A chance at a warriors glory like something from the old Vorse tales.

This book is very atmospheric and the author does a wonderful job at building this world and painting the forest they travel through. The story follows the single POV of Frey, which is a shame as I would have liked to read from the other girls as they're all so different and come to the trade for different reasons. Frey's blood sings for glory and wants more than the sad work of Mercy killing.

As they travel closer to their destiny you see such a change in her fellow Mercies, which is why it would have been nice to have different POVs, the people they meet and they stories they share and tell has an impact on them. They are a family and they decide their fates together.

Truly I loved how this was written, every moment felt right and written with depth and care, but it was defiantly lacking something. There didn't feel like a sense of urgency, or any real wow moments, when I think back to any fights they did have on the road or going into the Marsh to face the Cut Queen it wasn't quite punchy enough. But on the flip side I loved the entire section with the Cut Queen, it felt weird and creepy and unpredictable but it lacked that something, that drama.

There's a lot to love about this book and there's a lot that needs some va va voom, there is a standalone companion book set in the same world I will be giving a read.

“I wanted to change my fate, to force it down another road. I wanted to stand in the river of time and make it flow a different direction, if just for a little while.” 

For more reviews, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle

I came across this in the Lending Library. I liked the odd title and the gorgeous cover and the fact that I had really no idea what it was about.

When I started reading it, I was instantly conflicted. I really liked the poetic narration. However, the characters were two-dimensional cardboard cutouts you can find in any teen book. They aren't unique or fully-formed or even that interesting.

Also, the loose plot that is strung through the book didn't interest me. It just kind of went along without any real story, just the boring, annoying characters describing their lives with oddly similar narration styles. Also, Midnight's sections were so long that I just ended up hating him. I would go days without reading this if I was on Midnight's section or would just put it down partway through his dull narration because I had no interest in it.

My main problem with the book was that I just didn't care about any of the characters. The whole time you're supposed to be trying to determine who is the hero, who is the villain, and who is the liar. However, from the start, it's pretty obvious it's not going to be as clear-cut as presented. The book didn't make me feel invested in anyone so whenever something actually happened, I just kind of shrugged and moved on.

Once the big reveal comes about, it didn't even affect me because of this lack of investment. I was mostly just annoyed because it felt like the author was just trying to "trick" you with unreliable narrators, rather than coming up with an interesting twist.

Despite my initial excitement, I was left feeling dissatisfied when I finally finished this. Nothing happened, the message was fairly obvious, and any of the unpredictable twists just didn't seem to matter because the characters just felt like shadows on a page.

However, the narration was quite lovely at times with beautiful lyricism and interesting descriptions. I did enjoy the writing style overall. It was almost like reading a really long poem. I may check out more by this author, but I am definitely going to need a more interesting plot and more compelling characters.

Starting out this book held so much potential. The first few pages had me sold and I was sure that I had found my next great read. Well, boy was I sure disillusioned! A common theme that became increasingly obvious was the lack of diversity. Which is already one of my biggest peeves, when it comes to modern fiction. It's 2019 at this point it is highly unrealistic that every character is heterosexual! Like come on now, it's highly unbelievable that given all the cultures within the book; that everyone is straight. Plus the blatant way the author has to point out that their straight is even more puzzling, as to why that is needed.

While there were some points within the stories that I enjoyed, such as learning about each character's background and the section with the Sea Witches and the Cut-Queen. The brief backstory is all we as the reader get, and there's not a lot more depth than that. I wanted to see more than just the base of what we got. A lot of the characters were just very bland, it feels like there was little to no character development. The pacing of the story was rather slow, but when it came to the action scenes everything was over too quickly and came too easily for the characters. Plus it takes half the book to get to the actual plot which is wrapped up just as quickly as all the rest of the scenes. I spent half of the book being so done with it all, but I was already that far along so I didn't want to drop it. By the end of it, I was just relieved to be done with it, and that is not a fun feeling upon finishing a book. 

Everything Reminds You of Something Else - 3 stars

Entsetzen - 5 stars

Rise of the Chosen - 3 stars

All the strangest things are true. - 3 stars

The Best We Could Do - 5 stars

Shadow of a Girl - 5 stars

Ein Gerücht kommt selten allein - 4 stars

Favorite book(s) of the month: Entsetzen, The Best we Could Do

Books started this month but haven't finished yet: Tote Augen

7 books, man. What is happening at the moment? I can't believe I'm getting through so many books. I also haven't read any book this month that I didn't enjoy, so I'm pretty happy with my reading choices in march.

First things first: I received this book through NetGalley.

German and english review

Ich bin mir immer noch nicht sicher, was ich über das Buch und die Geschichte denke. Oder über die Charaktere. Aber erst mal zum...

Inhalt: Wink: ein bisschen seltsam, zurückhaltend, mit wildem rotem Haar und einer ausufernden Fantasie. Poppy, das schöne Biest, das alle manipuliert, aber den nicht bekommt, den sie eigentlich haben will. Midnight, ein unsicherer Junge, hin- und hergerissen zwischen beiden. Sie alle erzählen ihre Geschichte. Eine Geschichte, in der die verrücktesten Dinge wahr sind. Was ist wirklich passiert? Jemand weiß es. Jemand lügt. Wem kannst du trauen?

Anfangs war ich total begeistert, die Charaktere waren alle drei ziemlich spannend. Wink hat sich von Anfang an in mein Herz geschlichen.Doch im Laufe des Buches, je weiter wir in die Geschichte kamen um so weniger wusste ich was ich von den einzelnen Charakteren halten soll. Was wahrscheinlich auch so gewollt war, schließlich soll in dem Buch keiner so sein, wie es auf dem ersten Blick scheint.

Was mir von Anfang bis Ende wirklich gefallen hat war die Art wie die Geschichte geschrieben wurde. Der Schreibstil war wirklich anders aber wirklich unheimlich schön. Fast schon poetisch. Und das hat am Ende auch das Buch für mich ausgemacht. Nicht die Charaktere, nicht die Story an sich, sondern wie alles geschrieben war.

***

I'm still not sure how I think about the book and the story. Or the characters. But first...

Summary: Every story needs a hero.
Every story needs a villain.
Every story needs a secret.

Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous.

What really happened?
Someone knows.
Someone is lying.

In the beginning I was totally excited, all the three characters were really intriguing. Wink stole my heart in the very first pages. But the more I got into the book, the more I got into the story, the less I knew what to think of the characters. That was probably the intent, since the book is about people not actually being the way they seem to be.

What I loved from the beginning until the very end, was the way the story was written. The writing is just so different and so beautiful. Almost poetic. And that was what made the book for me in the end. Not the characters, not the story itself, but how everything was written.