Sunday, July 29, 2012

Review: Ever Shade: A Dark Faerie Tale by Alexia Purdy

I love books about faeries. I have loved faeries as a child, especially after I read Tithe by Holly Black. So when I found Ever Shade: A Dark Faerie Tale on my kindle I had really high hopes. Yeah, those were pretty much dashed within the first four chapters.

"Ever Shade is a dark twist on faeries. For Shade, a chance meeting with a powerful Teleen faery warrior who wields electrical currents and blue fires along his skin-has her joining him on a treacherous mission for the good Seelie Faerie Court across the land of Faerie. Magic and malice abound and nothing is what it really seems to be."
 - taken from Amazon.

See? The description makes it sound really interested. It also makes it sound like a book about just Shade and the Teelen Fairy. Yeah, its not.

It starts out really well. You learn about Shade and how she hears voices in her head. You also get a huge description of her friend, who completely disappears after that chapter. Seriously. You learn all about this character and she is never mentioned again. Come on. Why even both writing about her?

The story line picks up when the voices force Shade to go in this creepy old building. There she meets the Teleen faerie, Jack, and another warrior, Vange. Again, you learn all about Vange and yet there no other mention of her in the book. When she meets Jack, he is throwing out lightning from his skin. I'm sorry, but any normal person would go hightailing it out of there, not sticking around to make friends. And when this stranger with the magic powers is just like hey, you should come with me into the forest to meet all my pals, NO ONE EVER WOULD GO WITH HIM. No one is that stupid. Hell, even a child isn't that stupid.

She does go with him, which is so unrealistic, and meets an oracle. Which is understandable, she wants to know why she hears voices. But when Shade is told who she is and that she has to go on a horrible journey to help the fae, she just goes right along with it. Again, no normal person would just be ok with being told that they are part fae and have to go risk their life to help strangers. Again, most people would be running in the other direction. Even when you find out that Shade doesn't want to go with them, does she say no? Does she protest at all? No. None at all. She just goes right on along with her life and journey.

Honestly, I could keep going like this through the entire book. Its that bad. Except for one element. I did like the amount of foreshadowing and connecting in the book. I wish I could give you an example, but that would ruin huge parts of the book. But there is lots of connectors which give the book something more than just bad dialogue and horrible characters and plot points.

Overall, if you don't really care about reading a great book, you just need something to read, or you love horrible writing, you should read this book. Its bad, but its due-able in a pinch. Plus its a series, which means that I will probably get sucked into reading the next one. I give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

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