**NB: Jen Grey has contacted me. She is doing revisions on her book and asked if I would give it another go. As I really wanted to like this book, I agreed. I will post a follow-up review after I read the revisions.**
When I first heard about the premise of this book, I wanted to read it. When I heard that the author needed reviewers, I was even more excited. Unfortunately, I didn’t get far into this book before I had to put it down. The details of a story are what draw me in, and this novel is lacking in details.
One page that really drove that home was in the second chapter. Up to this point, I was unaware that this was a modern story. It seemed like an historical fantasy, from the birth in the castle to the wording, I thought I was reading something that happened in a place that lacked electricity and used chamber pots. Until this page in Chapter 2 where the MC is woken by what I presume to be an alarm clock? It never really says. In that same sequence, the MC wakes up, gets up, and goes downstairs for coffee. She never gets dressed, I don’t know what her room looks like. I’m not even sure how large the house is. One second she’s in bed and the next she’s cheerfully greeting her mother and brother good morning. This is indicative of the way the entire book is written. Things just happen, without any explanation. Unless there’s dialogue, then there’s lots of explanation.
The only pace it seems to have is “barrel on through at top speed.” I felt like I was racing toward something, but unable to even slow down enough to see where I was going. I was disinterested in the characters and world because there was nothing to interest me. The MC has black hair (rare) and wears pants instead of dresses to do magic. She’s made fun of because she’s not the Savior, she’s in love with the prince, and likes the garden. I don’t know what the garden looks like. I’m not even really sure what the prince looks like. Dialogue followed a similar vein, with things being over-explained and very simplistic. It lacks the color and life that is evident in real discourse.
My only impression this book was a vague world with blurry outlines of characters as I rush past in my goal of following the plot. It felt rushed and uninteresting. I only read 2 chapters because of this. If an updated or newly revised version comes out, I may pick it up because I think the story has a lot of potential, but as it is written now, I could not read it.
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