Helpful Score: 5
While I appreciate wit and humor in my stories, I never much liked the kind of ridiculous humor strewn throughout this book. *Everything* is a joke--death, sex, battle of the sexes, torture, you name it. At first I actually thought that Stephanie Rowe was clever and interesting, and so I might have remained thinking so, if the characters and plot hadn't kept whining about and rehashing the same things over and over again. This book is almost 400 pages and by 150 pages I was ready for it to end already! There's a lot of chasing and battling things with very little point to it. Essentially our main characters are running in circles interspersed with several hissy fits of Blaine feeling abandoned by everybody and Trinity wanting everyone to like her despite her homicidal tendencies. The main bad guy (or gal) is really just misunderstood and wanting to empower women everywhere by emasculating men, which I'd totally be on board with if she wasn't constantly battling her attraction to her abusive ex and his alpha ways. Furthermore, this story has a very confusing ending in which I can't tell if the evil/ misunderstood witch is dead, in limbo, or still at large for an upcoming story.
Bottomline: I think this story could have been a lot more clever if Rowe had backed off a little bit from making the obvious or easy jokes and tried to infuse her plot with a little more seriousness and actual character development. Then the forays into the absurd would have been welcomed instead of dreaded. I also think a more powerful message about equality of the sexes, particularly in relationships, could have been reached this way. Someone like Joss Whedon knows how to create fully developed characters in intricate situations while making the overall story funny, poignant, and real. Unfortunately Stephanie Rowe only knows how to put shallow characters into convoluted situations.
Bottomline: I think this story could have been a lot more clever if Rowe had backed off a little bit from making the obvious or easy jokes and tried to infuse her plot with a little more seriousness and actual character development. Then the forays into the absurd would have been welcomed instead of dreaded. I also think a more powerful message about equality of the sexes, particularly in relationships, could have been reached this way. Someone like Joss Whedon knows how to create fully developed characters in intricate situations while making the overall story funny, poignant, and real. Unfortunately Stephanie Rowe only knows how to put shallow characters into convoluted situations.
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