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A review by rainjrop
Beneath This Mask by Victoria Sue
2.0
2.5
Some of Victoria Sue's sentences are weird -this has happened across all three books. They're structured in such a way that I don't understand what I read the first time and have to re-read them multiple times to finally get it. That's a problem for a medium entirely composed of sentences.
This book focused on Gael and for some reason (or perhaps this was a problem all along, just masked due to his side-character status previously) his personality seemed to melt until he was indistinguishable from Talon. While their traumatic backstories are different, the characters read the same. The romantic progression was similar as well -the main difference between their arcs was the method of torture and who kept ending up in the hospital.
That's also a sticking point for me -the traumatic backstories. Every character in this book (and series) has lost one or more parents/siblings to suicide, abandonment, cancer, car accidents, etc., and if that didn't happen then those people were abusive. This includes main characters, side characters, one-off characters, and even people in news articles mentioned in the books. I think there's a worse parent survival rate than in the Disney canon. Loooordy. I understand this this special ops unit is made of marginalized people and they work to protect other people in tough situations, but every-goddamn-body is an orphan! It all feels like these tragic histories are slapped in by the author for convenience. And I don't like that.
The reviews for the next book look bleak, especially considering the *ahem* generous ratings people often give to romance novels. I think I'll be skipping it.
Some of Victoria Sue's sentences are weird -this has happened across all three books. They're structured in such a way that I don't understand what I read the first time and have to re-read them multiple times to finally get it. That's a problem for a medium entirely composed of sentences.
This book focused on Gael and for some reason (or perhaps this was a problem all along, just masked due to his side-character status previously) his personality seemed to melt until he was indistinguishable from Talon. While their traumatic backstories are different, the characters read the same. The romantic progression was similar as well -the main difference between their arcs was the method of torture and who kept ending up in the hospital.
That's also a sticking point for me -the traumatic backstories. Every character in this book (and series) has lost one or more parents/siblings to suicide, abandonment, cancer, car accidents, etc., and if that didn't happen then those people were abusive. This includes main characters, side characters, one-off characters, and even people in news articles mentioned in the books. I think there's a worse parent survival rate than in the Disney canon. Loooordy. I understand this this special ops unit is made of marginalized people and they work to protect other people in tough situations, but every-goddamn-body is an orphan! It all feels like these tragic histories are slapped in by the author for convenience. And I don't like that.
The reviews for the next book look bleak, especially considering the *ahem* generous ratings people often give to romance novels. I think I'll be skipping it.