Tuesday, May 10

Spellbound: Book Review

by Cara Lynn Shultz

Main Players: Emma Connors and Brendan Salinger
Place: New York

This is first and foremost a romance.  Okay that said as the first few chapters unfolded I was feeling some sort of deja vu with Hex Hall.  This is nothing like that book and barely can say it concerns witches.  There was some sort of fairy tale reincarnation stuff happening as well.  So slight were the influences of these elements it felt like nothing more than an extremely hormonally charged romance.  At that the guy wasn't even likable.  Sure, he is the hottest thing to walk the planet, and yeah he knows it.  On top of that he is uber wealthy and smart so not at all humble.  There was a point at which the relationship hit a bit of a snag and I was hoping it would turn into a break so some real character development would happen.  No such luck.
After the crisis has been averted and the book is wrapping up I thought it a bit funny that one of the characters states it can't be that easy to overcome our obstacles.  The other character then sums up what they had to go through.  It reminds me of how often when I read a book and they have such incredible build up leading to the crisis, I often feel let down by how quick or simple it seemed.  I felt like the author was trying to avoid the reader feeling this way by reminding them how much she wrote into the big terrible moment. Plus honestly, if you could really live that moment you wouldn't be thinking it was a let down.
Overall, it wasn't too bad but not great either.