I was given Dark Rising, by M.X. Kremzen, so that I could give it my honest review. I actually found this book and was drawn to it by both the cover and the blurb. Both of them, I think, did what they were supposed to and actually made me want to read it. I thought it would be something right up my alley. Here are my thoughts on it.
Things that I liked:
The biggest draw for this book was the blurb itself. I thought it was well done and it interested me enough to actually want to read it. I loved all the technology in the book. I thought there were a lot of ideas in there that were original and kept me interested. The story itself was pretty good. It wasn't ultra-compelling but it did make want to read more. My favorite character from the entire book was Psi, the villain. I thought his motives were excellent, he was smart, and he always thought things through. I even liked his evil plan in the story too. Again, it speaks to his intelligence and planning skills. The world-building, also, was very good.
Things that I didn't like:
Psi was the only character I really ended up liking. Elijah was also cool and mysterious but he wasn't in it for very long. I didn't like nearly any other character. I felt James and Alexander's banter didn't really make sense. I thought that James's treatment of Alexander didn't make sense either. Their entire relationship didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. There were times when I did like Ezilie's character, but there were times when I didn't. I also didn't like (SPOILER ALERT!!) how easy it was to foil Psi's plot. He was a careful planner and I really don't think he would've let them get the better of him like they did. I didn't really think Psi and Alexander's special abilities really clicked with the rest of the story. They seemed thrown in there as opposed to actually being flawlessly meshed into the plot. It was a big part of the story and I don't even really know what was going on. I didn't really know what it was their abilities were for or really did. I thought the writing itself was really good in some small parts, good for most of the story, and poor for the rest. There were some grammatical errors that kept tripping me up and some places where words were clearly supposed to be in the sentence but weren't.
Overall, I thought most of the story was pretty good. The beginning was excellent and drew me in, but shortly after that, things kind of dropped off. I found myself, more often than not, forcing myself to finish. Then the ending came and things really didn't make sense to me. I know it's part of a series, but I felt some deeper explanations about some things might've been helpful. I think maybe some edits and more proofreading would really turn this book into a great one.
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