For some reason when I started this book I thought it was about mermaids. Haha. That's what happens when you have a tbr pile a mile tall and you are in the habit of not reading the book summaries because they be spoiling the book like hell! So it took me a while to switch gears but that's okay...
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| no worries we'll just read about land people instead |
ANYWAYS. Let's get to the review.
Another tragic death of a great concept at the hands of a poor execution. At first the plot of Nemesis seems alluring with talk of mystical kingdoms, deadly man-eating mermaids, and a precious sought after resource called "spectorium". But as you delve deeper into the story you begin to realize how trite everything is. So yeah... sorry. This is going to be another rant type review. But here is some IU to make you smile.
We have a princess that is the sole producer of spectorium. A king that is just coming into power and needs that spectorium to save his people. Sounds ok, right? Not so.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Princess runs away from her kingdom (for no good reason), and despite her description of herself as a badass that can fight and is super intelligent and cunning, she displays none of her super awesomeness. She ends up getting kidnapped by two lame vagabond hunters. They miraculously never find out her ability (although she does very little to hide it and keeps spewing very bright silver liquid metal in random ditches).
Following that, she gets sold into the King's harem and blah blah blah. At this point I have already lost all respect for the heroine and her supposed "beauty" and skill. Banks wanted desperately to portray her as a strong beautiful lead but I just didn't buy it. And as soon as you add a harem in there I am done. Because a harem by its very nature demands explicit details to portray its authenticity. You can't do that in the young adult genre without coming across as unlearned.
The Princess has been in the harem barely a day when she already has the other "beauties" hating on her. She too quickly becomes the prize of the harem and has caught the King's attention (who by the way, has never before felt obliged to be interested in the harem at all).
***END SPOILERS***
***END SPOILERS***
The romance that ensues is (thank God) not insta-love and yet equally despicable. There seems to be zero chemistry between the pair. If not for the confines of this book the characters would run from each other in real life.
Banks also tried to add the pyramids in there but without all their glory. She seemed to want to pursue an Egyptian backdrop as the setting but tbh that didn't even register on my radar it was so inefficient. Instead of the characters truly immersing themselves into the story, they seemed to float by experiencing a little piece of everything. I wish she had picked one thing and focused on it. Be it the mysterious parani, the ties between kingdoms, the royal romance, or the search for spectorium. Had she delved deeper into the world and fleshed it out more I might have endured the painful romance. But since even the world-building was absent, I didn't really know what I should be interested in. Where was the rich culture of the people? The mysterious history of the beautiful creatures that inhabit the world (parani and the dragon-like creatures...)?
Then there is the body paint. Oh my. I won't even. Let's just leave it. Did they really paint themselves all gold and silver in ancient Egypt? Or was that unique to this book. I really have no idea so I can't say much. I just didn't like the idea though. Nuh-uh.
So yeah, rant over. I've run out of things to say that would actually add to this review without making it sound more of a rant. I would like to hope the second book in the series is going to improve on its predecessor, but as of now I don't think I will be reading it. As always, please remember these were just my opinions and I'm sure there people out there who loved the book. This just wasn't my cup of tea.
(Pssst...Lies! I really just hated it because it wasn't about mermaids..hehehe....) I'm gonna go now and find a mermaid book, ok?
Have you read Nemesis by Anna Banks? Did you like it? Any good mermaid books you know of? Let me know in the comments and I promise to give you a great recommendation in return!
