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Review: everything you know by Mary Beth Bass
everything you know
written by Mary Beth Bass
published by Boroughs Publishing Group
find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Smashwords, Goodreads
Why did I pick this book: I was asked by the author to review this book. (I received a copy of this book for review purposes.)
Did I enjoy this book: I . . . I thought I did. I wanted to. It’s the sort of thing I usually enjoy, and yet for some reason about halfway through I found myself reluctant to keep reading and I couldn’t figure out why . . .
You know how sometimes you get sick and don’t notice, and then a few days later you mention to your husband that you’re struggling to find motivation to do the dishes and he says, “Well, it’s probably because you’re sick,” and you think, “Holy Crap! I AM sick! No wonder I’ve been feeling so tired/yucky/cranky this week!” Yeah. This book was like that.
. . . So, once I figured out I wasn’t actually enjoying the book, I realized why. There’s too much of it. For one, there’s too much poetry. I hate it when characters in books just happen to be able to quote stanza after stanza of classic poetry. If you’ve written a book, I assume you’ve also read a few. You don’t need to wow me with your love of poetry by having your characters recite it. I get it. You’re well read.
There was also too much sex. Well, no, that’s not exactly it – there wasn’t very much actual sex, but the details were a bit too gratuitous for my taste. I don’t, for example, need to see the protagonist masturbating. Really I don’t. He’s a teenager and he’s got a crush on a pretty girl. I’m smart enough to figure out what he’s doing in his spare time without you spelling it out for me.
There was just, generally, too much. There were too many bad guys, too many subplots, too many secret powers and weird, hard to pronounce names, too much magic-that’s-not-really-magical terminology. It was just too, too much.
Would I recommend it: No.
Will I read it again: No.
About the book: Images of a dark forest, a screaming woman and blood haunt Emma Mathews from the moment she meets Joe Castlellaw, and everything she thought she knew about life, her family, and herself is about to change forever.
Emma Mathews never believed she was like everyone else, but neither did she think herself crazy. Meeting Joe Castlellaw, Henry Dearborn High’s newest student, was like waking on a cold rock in a strange place, the world bathed in liquid moonlight. Everything is different now…and fraught. Visions of a dark forest, a screaming woman and blood haunt Emma’s dreams, and not only at night. But Joe’s lonely beauty makes her float on air, and she would follow him anywhere: out of high school and through the great tree, to a world of poetry and political savagery, of magic and murder, to a life that is entirely theirs and yet unlike anything they have ever known.
