Carole (Carole's Random Life)'s Reviews > Black Iris

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life.



1 Star

I didn't like this book at all. I was so excited to get an early copy of this book because I saw everyone raving about it on Goodreads. I just knew that this would be a book that I would fall in love with based on all the 5 star reviews that I saw. I am not sure that I read the same book that everyone else read. I disliked everything about this book. I almost stop reading many times but I kept waiting for that magical moment where I would fall in love with this story like I had expected. Now that I have finished the book, I can honestly say that I wish I had listened to that little voice in my head telling me give up on this book early in the story and move on to another.

I didn't care about the characters. There isn't a single one of them that I like in even the smallest way. These are not nice people. The main characters spend most of the book under the influence of some kind of substance. They spend the entire book thinking about sex, drugs, more sex, and more drugs. I have read and loved books that have a strong focus on both sex and drugs before so it isn't really the sex or the drugs that were the problems for me. These characters didn't feel real to me. I felt absolutely no connection to them in any way. I can't even say that I hated any of them because none of them made me feel anything.

I didn't like how this book jumped around in time. This has to be one of the most confusing reading experiences of my life. I was constantly having to stop and figure out where on the timeline each chapter was happening. I have read a lot of books that used flashbacks or a dual timeline that I have really enjoyed. This book would jump around in time in a way that made no logical sense to me. I think that the story would have been so much easier to follow if things had jumped around less.

I didn't like the writing style. Descriptions sometimes seemed to go on forever and in the end didn't make any sense. The author would also insert little comment about how the typical novel would go from this point and I will be honest every time this happened it drove me crazy. I can't tell you how many times I would read a sentence and think huh? Then I would read it again and wonder what kind of image those words were really supposed to help me create.

I didn't like the story. I thought this book was one of the most boring things that I have read for the first 60% or so. Things got a little more interesting at that point but that is just because something finally happened. Even after there was a little action, I still never felt connected to the story. This story just never grabbed me. There was never a moment where I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. I was incredibly let down by how this story ended.

I wouldn't recommend this book. I do think that many readers will love this book. Almost all of the reviews that I have seen up to this point have been very positive so I am definitely in the minority with my opinion on this one.

I received a copy of this book from Atria Books via NetGalley for the purpose of providing an honest review.