RATING: 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑(2/5 moons)
Published: September 15, 2015
Publisher: Thomas Dunne
Format: eBook
Pages: 320
“They had both been beaten by men who decided that the only things worth less than their souls were their bodies.”
SYNOPSIS:
For twenty years, the Palomas and the Corbeaus have been rivals and enemies, locked in an escalating feud for over a generation. Both families make their living as traveling performers in competing shows—the Palomas swimming in mermaid exhibitions, the Corbeaus, former tightrope walkers, performing in the tallest trees they can find.
Lace Paloma may be new to her family’s show, but she knows as well as anyone that the Corbeaus are pure magia negra, black magic from the devil himself. Simply touching one could mean death, and she’s been taught from birth to keep away. But when disaster strikes the small town where both families are performing, it’s a Corbeau boy, Cluck, who saves Lace’s life. And his touch immerses her in the world of the Corbeaus, where falling for him could turn his own family against him, and one misstep can be just as dangerous on the ground as it is in the trees.
THOUGHTS:
This book was sold to me as “Romeo & Juliet plus magical realism”. The protagonists, Cluck and Lace, are both from families who have been a traveling performers ever since they were born. But in addition to that, their families have a feud for a long time and so every year as they travel and perform in different places, they would always meet in one place for the end of their show to compete with each other. When Cluck and Lace met in an unexpected time without knowing that they are from rival families, things get a little more complicated. But it gets more complicated than that as Lace and Cluck fell in love.
Quite an interesting story right? However, reading this book is not that interesting. The pacing is so slow and I’ve read 4 to 5 chapters of nonsense. I can see the potential of this book, yet the execution does not piqued my interest. The magical realism aspect is there; both families have something to hide that could distinguish them as a part of each clan, but that’s the end of it for most of the plot. 85% of the plot is the love story between Lace and Cluck and it is so dragging. The sub plots that should’ve made this story interesting felt flat and the build up for the climax is not worth it. The climax itself is boring in a lot of sense.
I will not consider it as a plot-based story neither a character-based story. I could not careless about the characters; Cluck is an emo kid who was bullied by most of his family members and Lace is annoying in a sense. I was hoping for the plot to be a revival yet it does not lived up to my expectation. Even the ending left me confused because of the sudden magical outburst and then it’s gone. It does not resolve the issue and the ending feels weird.
Read it at your own risk but I would not recommend it. Although I have seen some people who actually like it.
Till next time!
Maria ❤
A Daughter of Parchment and Paper 