I received an eArc copy of a novel this past year, and in exchange for the copy, I had to give a review. Through proofreading and analyzing the content, this is the review I had written:
"[titled book] by [author], has a good concept and is filled with many good ideas-- such as humanity being filled with darkness and being seen as a doomed race.
The novel's pacing made it hard for me to get through till the end. In a way, it felt like the novel was too rushed. It felt more of a tell, don't show. It was hard for me as a reader to live in the moment because I felt I had to continuously keep up with the pacing, which more times than not felt like sprinting. I lean more towards the "show, don't tell," side as a reader, I desire to savor these moments in the novel. It was hard to do that.
In a lot of parts, it also felt like an info dump. I appreciate the world-building that was created and thoroughly enjoyed that aspect, but even some of the dialogue felt more like a Q&A than an actual conversation. It was just dumping information one after the other. At some points, random facts were just blurted out, making it much harder to keep up with what was even going on.
Some of the dialogue bits weren't even realistic conversations. I have never heard the term, "like oil floating on the surface of milk," as a regular comparison in a normal conversation. There were just odd things like these used to further the story's details that actually took away from the meaning altogether. Another example is, "her eyes withered, showing the whites, and a vein stood out against her golden forehead, as if one gust of wind had transformed this graceful galleon into a pirate ship that had spread its menacing black sails." For one, this isn't bad, but descriptions like these lose me. They lose their meaning completely because I'm trying to understand these random comparisons that don't have a lot to do with what's actually trying to be explained.
I'm unsure of how I feel about Thomas's character. I understand the important role he played in the novel, but his character was so random when he was first introduced. Which, is fine, but his and Lilly's relationship felt quite brushed over, and we were just informed that he developed an obsession with her while he trained her to be a warrior. Him not getting the girl and turning into a nox as a result of him being mad about it was just abrupt too, which aided in the story's fast pacing. Had there been more of a build-up, more tension, and more scenes between the two characters that made us understand why he came to the decision to become a nox would've helped further my interest in his character."