Books I Couldn't Finish (#1)

These are books that I was unable to finish. While this is not a proper review, I'm making a post about them in case others are curious as to why I had to put them down before I reached the end. I know I would want to.

Branded by Abi Ketner & Missy Kalicicki

I was unable to finish this novel for the following reasons. 

While the idea for the novel has great potential, and the beginning is well-written, I found many issues with the characters and other aspects of the story. Most importantly was Lexi as a narrator and heroine. She states how strong she is on numerous occasions but her actions go against her words. She cries, throws tantrums, vomits, etc... 

As soon as she meets Cole and begins to fall in love with him, her entire world begins to revolve around him. It was disgusting, frankly that a female character be degraded to such a flat and pathetic thing. Also, Cole was not develloped well as a character, going from a tough guard to a lovestruck puppy with no evident transition between the two. For as far as I read, there was no character development nor expansion on his backstory.

 Neither character was well develloped or had been explored properly into their mentality before writing the book. I am upset that I was unable to finish this story as the potential and possibility to tackle sensitive issues was promising. However, it was not capatilized on.

Fates by Lanie Bross

I was unable to finish this story for several reasons.

While the story had an incredibly strong start, the action starting out right off the bat and capturing my attention immediatly. However within a couple chapters, my interest had changed into distain, and the hope that perhaps if I kept reading, the story would be able to catch my interest again. Several things caused this, and eventually made me have to put down the book about the half-way mark. First of all, I find that the minor characters revolving around Luc and Corinthe have absolutely no development and been carelessly written as stereotypes, which included objectifying women.

Along the same lines, I could not stand reading from Luc's point of view, especially when he was around Corinthe on the boat and later at the Marina. His thoughts about her made me very uncomfortable. I'm fairly certain that even a teenage boy is able to process thoughts even when a pretty girl is standing near by, and not have thoughts of almost-forcing himself on her, especially when the attention is clearly unwanted. The one thing that stood out to me (spoilers!) was when she had a knife to his throat and all he could thing about was pressing his hips against hers. It was gross, frankly.

Lastly, I felt that the plot and backstory was thrown together in a rather half-assed manner. Corinthe's backstory had potential but no proper development was made so it ended up being very sketchy and dissapointing. Also, as soon as she is assigned her final task, there is no real evidence of a plot. I feel like the author just threw together scenes and hoped they would work.

It is a shame really, because the story had such potential, and I would have loved to read a good story about the Fates.