Kay, Rekindling

Someone recommended this book on an "If you liked Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart" forum.

That was literally the worst recommendation ever.

Cardboard characters, mundane plot, and romantic cliches all abound in this incredibly ho-hum, stagnant excuse for a story. Most of the book revolves around Lara's tedious daily activities, and it gets old pretty quickly: Healing the wounded, picking off willow bark from stools to make medicine, and exchanging meaningless banter with the warriors of the camp were interesting the first time around--not so much after 40 pages.

The only similarity to the Kushiel series is that the main character, Lara, is presented to an invading Warlord as a sex slave tribute--and even that is a bit of a stretch. Given the premise, the romance was perplexingly vanilla and behind-doors. (Nothing against clean romance, but if it's going to be clean, why even bother making the main character a sex slave??)

At 44%, I've given this book a fair shot, but ugh, if I have to read about one more stereotypical cook who can reduce conquering warlords into 5-year-old boys with a withering glare, I will punch something.

1 star

From the summary and some of my GR friends' reviews, this book reminds of The Long Walk by Stephen King. The same slow-burning, psychological tension that drives the plot home.

2 stars. Fell short of its predecessor, Perfect Chemistry, by quite a margin. Decently readable, but lacks a certain spark between the two main characters. I'm still looking forward to the third book--can't get enough of the Fuentes brothers!

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I don't think I've given Brandon Sanderson more than three stars for any of his books, and this is no exception. I was sorely disappointed with my latest Sanderson endeavor, Elantris, and picked this book up on a whim. I'm glad I read Emperor's Soul. It did have similar issues that bothered me about his other books, but the ending finale left me touched.

More detailed review to come (huh? when? everrrr???)