(Nov. 19)I so very much wanted to love this book.
Really I did.
And it’s not that I didn’t like it.
It’s that I didn’t love it.
It was kind of lackluster for me.
There was sooooo much explaining. I mean the main character, Lyn, did so much explaining, about who people were, what the Gladiator Association was and who started it and how it evolved.
For me none of the characters stood out. I didn’t feel a deep connection with any of them. It seemed too fast paced in relation to the characters. Like I caught snippets of them but they were always out of my reach. Two dimensional.
I loved the fact that Ms. Haines introduced a special needs character (being that I worked with kids like this for four wonderful, rewarding, hard years ) and had him as such an integral part of the story and also a pretty cool one. I loved his Oracle-ness. Thought it was a nice touch.
The other character that I liked most was Uber. The Neo-gladiator hero that Lyn is supposed to marry.
I loved his clumsy-ness around her, I loved his openness, I loved his thick glasses. I don’t know, it’s like he was a dork but everyone adored him and wanted him.
Overall it was a good story, just not enough dialogue for me, not enough character building. Not sure if there’s going to be another in this series, but if so, we have the foundation laid out for us nicely.
If I did this I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars.
