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| ★★✰✰✰ |
Synopsis: The funny thing is I never even meant the first one. Now I bitterly regret visiting the cursed witch's house, deep in the middle of the forest. It's where I made my wishes. I wished Klara Klein dead. It came true. I wished for the most gorgeous boy in town to finally notice me. It came true. I didn't mean for this to happen. Not me, Steffi Nett, the shy one who never says anything. But as the body count increases with every wish I make . . .who else could it be?
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Review: Having previously read The Glass Demon by the same author, and having liked several aspects of it immensely while it ultimately fell short of noteworthy, I decided to give her one more chance. I'm glad I did, but only insofar as I now know not to read any more.
As with The Glass Demon, this novel started off promisingly, and I think even about a third of the way in, I was convinced it was going to be a four star read. But ultimately I think Grant gets an idea in her head, and forces it to work, by way of extremely unlikely events and cardboard characters who all serve no purpose but to further the plot. This means the characters are generally unpredictable, 2-dimensional and for some reason, all absolutely terrible people. Every man Grant writes (in both books) at least suffers from problems, if is not an outright sexual assaulter or murderer. Not that her women get away with much - the main character in this is extremely inconsistent, unlikeable and immature. Another female character is fat and gluttonous, another a busybody out to ruin lives, another is a sociopath - Grant must hate people! The plot started off well, but became quite ridiculous and largely impossible by the end.
It's a shame, because Grant definitely has the capacity to write interesting and absorbing prose - that's how I got through both books. Unfortunately, she really needs to work on her characters and on branching out from the one plot formula she seems to use in every book.
Rating: 2/5
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