Sunday, 2 September 2012

Book Review: Pledged by Gwynneth White

Title: Pledged (Soul Wars Saga #1)
Author: Gwynneth White
Publisher: Swallow Press
Pages: 291
Release Date: 3rd June 2012
Read In: August 2012

Goodreads - Amazon.co.uk/.com

*The book was provided by the publisher in exchange for this review*
Everyone has a soul mate. But what do you do when your soul mate would rather give his soul to the demons than be with you?
Seventeen-year-old Erin has a problem. Seth has been hers forever, but now an ancient curse is tearing him away. And the demons who invoked it will stop at nothing – even murder – to claim him as their own.
How can she win against a curse so binding that it has damned countless others to this same fate – an eternity alone?
The answer lies in the past. To find it, Erin and Seth must risk all, travelling back in time to a dangerous world where love is forbidden, and life – and death – hang on a pledge.
Follow Erin and Seth as they travel to ancient Shenaya and confront the curse that has plagued their families for millennia. Caught in a war between the Angelic Guardians and the Gefallen, the disembodied dead, they must fight to keep their souls in tact and their love untainted.
*This review is only of the first 30% of the book. If you do not want to read a review of a book that was unfinished, do not read this review*
*This review is part of a blog tour. Click the link for the other blogs participating:http://todayinshenaya.blogspot.co.uk/p/our-blog-roll-of-tour-hosts.html*



I would like to thank the publisher for inviting me to read and review Pledged but unfortunately it wasn’t for me.

Pledged started off well. It was interesting and I was eager to find out what happens next.  The story is based in South Africa, a country in which I am completely unfamiliar, and I couldn’t wait to find out more about it. Erin and Seth seemed really great as characters too as we slowly learned bits and pieces about them and their childhood.

And then we find out about their secret past and the magical goings on. Unfortunately, this is where I stopped enjoying the book.

The main problem I had was that I became confused. After the first few chapters, so much information started to be thrown at me; characters, background and the magic system. It was all dumped on the characters at once and therefore on me. With Erin accepting it straight away, magically realising it is the truth, I didn’t get time to discover it. I also didn’t have time to process it. Next thing I know they are off on their adventure and I still didn’t really understand what was going on. I was entering a state of reading but the words go right over my head.

There were way too many characters introduced all at once. I couldn’t keep up with who was who. I forgot too easily who did what job and who was saying what point. Along with all the background information as well, I became lost. Even the man who was introduced as an antagonist, or who I assume is an antagonist, came into the scene and there was no reaction. Well not a reaction I would expect from a guy, who is their enemy, turning up in the room. Nothing was making any sense.

Even though this is a style of storytelling that I do not like, I can put up with it. But I need to understand everything that is going on in a particularly important scene like that. The adventure continued on leaving me none the wiser. I know that I could go back and try to work it out, but if I did not understand it the first time round I don’t really want to bother. Call it lazy if you will but I am reading a book for fun not as part of my English comprehension homework.

This book in the end of the day wasn’t going to work for me, as I was left confused and, sorry to say, uninterested by about a third of the way through. 


Becky

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