debzbookshelf

This was a very interesting read. I found the writing pleasant, although I don't usually enjoy present tense, but besides that there wasn't much I liked. It's told from 3 different points of view: Zel, Mother, and Konrad. Zel and Konrad's parts were both told in 3rd person, but Mother's part was told in 1st person. I have no clue why. It irritates me that there is no explanation. The last chapter was especially confusing as each paragraph was told from a different perspective. About 2/3 of the way through I really just wanted a bomb to drop on all the characters. They were all so irritating and irrational. Mother is a control freak, Zel has nearly every mental disorder known to man, and Konrad is obsessive and desperate. It only got worse as the story progressed, and by the last 15 pages I was just so mad at all the characters that the only think that kept me reading was hope that everyone would end up miserable and dead. I don't usually wish for those kinds of endings to books. The 'romance' was kind of weird. They meet for 5 minutes at the beginning of the story, then spend the rest of the book obsessing over each other. I do not use that term lightly. They spend nearly every moment of their lives thinking about each other, chasing after each other, and hallucinating about each other. This book was rather misleading. The cover and length and description all make it seem like a middle grade novel, but it most certainly wasn't. It contains some pretty mature stuff like selling your soul and immorality and other creepy stuff I don't particularly enjoy reading about.