Review: Moonbreeze - Adrienne Woods

Moonbreeze by Adrienne Woods

Rating {★★★★☆}

Actual rating 3.5 stars - I more than liked it, but I didn't really, really like it.

Aaargh. This one was frustrating! I want to rate it highly, and yet it's a max 3.5 star read for me. However, even though the book (and entire series in fact) has it's ups and downs for me, I am so addicted.

I have only just realised how long this book was - 552 pages! It was a good thing - as I am seriously hooked on this series and there was a long wind up in this one where I was wondering if I was even reading the same series by the same Author. When this book hit it's stride, it really got going and I was back in my comfort zone. Unfortunately it was only at the 40% mark that this happened but with the size of the book at least there was still about 300 pages of good reading for me to go!

What frustrates me endlessly is that I can see exactly where the Author is trying to go and everything that she is doing. I can see the planning, the carefully crafted sequence of events, the entire beautiful world that has been created for this series and I am in love with it. I have emotional bonds to these characters - I feel empathy. Woods has made me laugh out loud, she has made me cry and has made me read this series and almost nothing else for two solid weeks!

But.....

Even though the actual process of the development of these books has been done impeccably, sometimes the execution has failed.

For me, I like a slightly more subtle hand when it comes to making a point. It was mentioned numerous times that Elena could never trust Blake again. I get it - she had every reason to be wary of him. But really, we all know where this one is going. I also don't particularly like almost forcing myself through a couple of hundred pages and then realising why it was important further down the line.

Giggling.... There is a lot of it in this book. So much so that I had to mention it in my status updates. I don't think it's necessary for so much of it and at times it was inappropriate. There are so many other options - a chuckle, a snort, a snigger, a snicker, a soft laugh. In fact - personally when I read, I prefer fairly bland dialogue tags. It means I can read through the dialogue without being distracted by an adult having a completely inappropriate giggle. It hampered the character development for me because when an adult woman giggles in my head I am painting her as foolish or immature which is not where these characters should be. Grunting was another form of communication that I thought was overused.

The editing was also lacking with a few typos and grammatical errors. Not the Author's fault and something that I tried my hardest to read over but, especially in the first 40% of the book where I wasn't completely immersed into the world, these errors can be a complete distraction.

It also seems that at times Woods struggled to keep the focus of the plot. Yes, all the things that happened move the plot forward and they are getting us to the final resolution - however there may be slightly too much detail to keep the reader completely engrossed. Maybe a bit of plot overkill/over-development.

I do love this series; I'm both excited and terrified to finish it. That is why it is so frustrating when I can't give this 5 stars! There are just some tweaks that I, as a reader, would love to see to make it even more masterful.

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