#his prose is boring to me and some of his early characters read kinda flat but the MAN. CAN.

[neosatsuma]

watching someone read Mistborn is like a sport. it's my favorite one btw

[whimsicaldragonette]

ARC DNF Review: A Curse of Gold by Annie Sullivan

I was hoping I'd like this one - I read the first and thought it was ok. Same with Tiger Queen. But I figured authors improve with each book, right? Well, the joke's on me. The prose is so monotonous and boring it saps all tension from the scenes. I just feel nothing about the characters (which were pretty flat before but I kinda hoped she'd round them out) or the plot or anything really. Here are some examples of why I realized early on that this book was not for me: "He tosses Royce and me swords. I turn to check on my father. He's still on his throne. Several guards surround him now and Tilner. He's safe for now." See? Flat. Sentence after sentence. The same length. Monotone. and then: "I move to follow Royce and Rhat but a sound makes me pause. It starts out like hissing. My eyes search for the source of the noise as it grows louder, turning into an odd plopping sound. Suddenly, gold melts off the intruder and pools on the floor. I stare, open-mouthed. How is this posible?" And that is how you write an action-y scene with absolutely no tension at all. At least the sentences aren't all the same length in this passage, but it's a small relief. Also this book and the one it follows are set in Greece. Yet there's absolutely nothing about Greece. No food, no descriptions of place, no different skin tones... We just get white people. And the Midas curse. The same as Tiger Queen really - it's set in the desert, and populated by, as far as I could tell, tanned white people. Speaking of diversity (or the lack thereof) Her books contain mostly white men. I haven't read all of this one, but her two previous books are populated with 95% straight white men and 5% straight white women. I think I can safely say that her books are *not* for me and I'll avoid them in future. *Thanks to Netgalley and Blink for providing an e-arc to review