Review: Bent, Not Broken

Bent, Not Broken by Suki Sather
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Reading this book was hard. Although I was absolutely intrigued by the world setting, especially it's mythology of para-human beings with different abilities, it was the narrative that left me with a feeling that only can be described like this:



Don't get me wrong the writing style was good, maybe even very good. The scenes between the main characters were well paced, more personal and very well described. The erotic scenes unfortunately aren't worth mentioning, which is why this book is not tagged as erotica.

This books needs an editor - and I don't mean proofreader! - someone to re-structure, re-pace and re-focus this book, which has a lot of potential due to it's world setting but the narration ruins it all. There aren't any differences made between important and unimportant information and scenes.
In the beginning I felt as if this was part two and I missed out on part one that would introduce me slowly to this brand new world of spiritual human beings. Far too many names, far too many species, far too much of everything got thrown at me throughout the book. Even worse: far too many POV switches! We have two narrators using 3rd POV and both have internal monologues in 1rst POV, one is also talking telepathically. Also there are switches between dreaming remembering and actual action, which cannot be distinguished instantly.
Kudos to the author that I did not DNF.... and I certainly did regret it, reading the final 20%.



It were those last 20% that made me decided against a three star rating, because I was experiencing something worse than TSTL: TSTL and knowing it plus dramarama. I don't want to spoil anything and I don't want to hide a full paragraph behind the spoiler tags.

The combination of the stupidity of several characters who allegedly were trained in combat and strategy. Going into an obvious trap, being the people who are actually targeted and knowingly delivering themselves is simply too outrageous. Them not listening to a voice of reason would only word if they were teens but they are not, they are all adults. This defies all logic.

And finally the behavior of our female lead that was behaving very analytical and doubting, somewhat being the sole voice of logic and reason ends up (view spoiler)[trying to kill herself? (hide spoiler)]. I couldn't believe her self-loathing, her not realizing that what she did was right, merciful and the only thing to do. Especially since she had appeared to have grown throughout the book only to fall back into old habits. Yes, this does happen, but what's the point of any story if a character doesn't grow? It made me lose all interest.





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