Book Review: A Wicked Kind of Dark by Jonathan K. Benton

NOTE: I received this title via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's official - this book barely took me to the end. It was unrealistic, it was shallow, it was unbelievable. Perhaps it was written for middle grade audience, but then again, if that were the case why would the characters be 17+ years old?

I just feel a bit sorry I wasted my time on it. Honestly, there are only a handful of books that have made me write something like that, but I can't bend my opinion to suit anyone. That's why it's called an honest review, I gather.

The writing style was laughable. I was more often rolling my eyes and tsk-ing than doing any valuable reading. I was eager to turn the pages so I would finally, FINALLY get to the end and be done with it. Why didn't I leave it unfinished? Gosh, I don't really know. I think it's because I was willing to give it a chance to improve, although it should've been obvious by the middle of it that it wasn't going to happen. *sigh* What's a reader willing to do just to give a higher rating...

Anyway, the story was okay. Mediocre. Unremarkable. It had potential to turn into one of those novels that people start reading after finishing Harry Potter. But having potential is quite different from using that potential and turning it into a masterpiece. I felt cheated, to be honest, that my expectations were not met.

I'd hoped for a fairy world, great tribulations in the 'wicked dark' as the title put it so well... but got nothing. I was told lots of things, but experienced nothing. I felt no compassion for the characters, I felt no desire to relief them from their troubles. Nothing at all stirred me up. I was simply an observer who wasn't taken at all by any part of this novel. None at all.

The characters didn't impress me in the slightest. I can't name even one of them without really thinking about it. The lead male, a 17 year old boy who suffers from amnesia, did not develop or grow at all. His female counterpart was there for only about 30-50 pages of the novel, so I can't really say anything about her either.

I guess the people who actually had some backbone and a slight bit of character were the artist and the Soho Soup place owner, and perhaps I do know their names, but I'm not all that sure. They were the ones who urged our male lead to believe.

Uh-huh. The boy was a coward through and through. And believing was supposed to save the world? Well, from what I saw, just believing means nothing. If the guy was less tense and more perceiving of the things surrounding him, he might've had the chance to survive in a less constraint manner.

In conclusion I can only say that A Wicked Kind of Dark did not meet my expectations. It didn't even meet half of them.

My rating is 2/5 stars