Crystallum

Crystallum
By: Laney McMann
My rating: ★★★☆☆

(I received this book free form Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for my honest review)

I'm really on the fence about this book. I honestly don't know if I like it or not. So I'm going to break this review down, because if not I'm going to be all over the place.

Story

I'll start with the over all story, before I start to rant about the things that have cause my confusion and uncertainty. The over all story, was to me, jumbled. There were some really solid scenes and I was nose deep until it taper off and, I was left with this empty feeling. For example the opening, was in my opinion, top notch. Sure I didn't quite get all the terms, but that's a normal occurrent in most first chapters and normally you get told rather quickly what all those foreign terms and words mean. This was not the case, I still don't know what some of the teams mean. In truth I still don't know what they were actually fighting or how their organization worked. Cole did tell Kadence some, but it was juvenile, something you would tell a five year old so they would stop asking questions.

The pacing of the story was off, way off. Too much jumping around, too much showing and not telling. Don't get me wrong the writing itself was good, it didn't sound silly or forced. In saying that, the reading of the story was great, and though I was confused more times then I would have liked, it had a smooth flow and was slightly addictive. Before I forget, this read is told in the third person, and normally when you have this type of story you get to learn more about the side characters that are strewn about. That wasn't the case for Crystallum, all of the side characters that normally make the story were 2D, boring, and not present like they should have been. (I won't get too much into that right now, I'll have a go in a minute when I break them down. ) There were many of opportunities to expand on them and, really round out the read. It would've helped fill in the gaps about the terms and the rules of the world this is Crystallum.

As I said there were some scenes that held promise and kept me reading, but they were short and far between. I believe there was three whole chapters were our hero's are still in school, doing mundane school crap that contributed nothing to the story, other then to force insta-love drama down our throats. So many missed opportunities.

Characters

Kadence

I didn't like here, still don't, and I didn't like reading about her. I actually dreaded when the story jumped back to her. I didn't learn a single thing about her. Other then she jumped off a cliff when she was six to get away from a demon? or whenever the hell they are because it was never full explained. She came off as shy, and lacked the ability to convert coherence sentences; but, there is a but. When she is first introduced, she doesn't give that vive. In fact, I though she would be a badass, since you know she'd been fighting the shadows, since she was a small child. That impression was given for all of two chapters. There was so much hope for her, she could have been so much more then a clumsy Mary-Sue. Really, I'm clumsy, I can trip over air, but in all my 28 years of nearly killing myself because my body doesn't want to stay up right, no-one has ever caught me. I've been laughed at, but the universe never gave me Kadence's ability to fall right at the perfect moment, when the hot bad boy is walking by. Common, once, okay, but not every damn time she fell, it was getting old and it was overused. This made her lousy, and helpless, and it dumped her down. I'm disappointed, she could have been a really badass character. Instead she's a sloppy take on what could have been, and fell head-over-heals for a boy she doesn't know. What I really hated, the staring, she was always staring at Cole. I got it, you fell hard for him, but damn it, there's no need to spend half a paragraph staring at him. No resistance at all,I was just waiting for her to drop her pants as yell, take me now!

It was demeaning and took away form the story. No, Kadence herself took away form the story.

Cole

He was my favourite and really made this story. In truth I only kept reading because of him. I said many times to my roommate that this book should have been told form his point of view. He was witty, strong, knew what he wanted, and didn't fully conformed to the rules that was forced on him. I wanted to know more about his past with his father. It was touched upon, but it wasn't explored. Again we're faced with half-assness. This character could have been so much more then he was, and to tell the truth, Cole was the most developed character in this whole mess. I knew more about him then Kadence, and she's suppose to me the main protagonist. But, as much as I enjoyed reading about Cole, I wasn't a fan of the insta-love between him and Kadence. It was forced, awkward and in truth there was no need of it.

Side Characters.

Again so much potential. Danny was a interesting guy, he's Cole's best friend, work partner, and the guy that got Cole to opened up. Why the hell didn't we get a scene focused on him, about his family, because there a plot bomb that goes off about 70% in and it's just left handing, undetonated. You know that pretty much sums up this book, undetonated plot bombs.

Lets move of to the "friends" Giselle and Lynsey. At first they came off at sobby bitches, and I was convinced there were justing using Kadence. But nope, they're apparently apart of the same order at Cole. Again it was like bam! goal, only for it hit the goal post. Another dude. Giselle and Lynsey are tossed aside, only being brought in for boy talk and pushing Jake at Kadence. They were useless, and I didn't care for them until the last 30% of the book. They're so much more and could have been major players in this mess. But again, again! you see it going for the net only for you to hear that ding, and it's all over before it begins. Jake, he falls into the same plot hole as every side character in this book, he could have been a real contender but, the author failed him.

The Ending

I got to say, I wasn't expecting the plot twist at the end, but yet again it felt opened, uncompleted and rushed. That could be because there wasn't a climax, it looked like there was going to be one, but the story ran into a wall. That wall, the insta-love. Instead of building the story up, it was halted by the need to show us how much Cole and Kadence are in love, you know after a week of knowing one another. That useless filler should have been chopped out and the space should have been use to, I don't know, fill us in on what the hell us going on, who the hell the baddies are, why in god names was Kadence so F'en importance and, how to kill said baddies. Nope we get frolicking around in a hidden hot spring.

Over all

So do I recommend this book? Yes, give it a shot, as I said it wasn't all bad, it does have promise and, I'm hoping the next book will be the story I know it could have been in the first. This story does end in a cliff-hangery kind of way, so I'm interested in see where the author takes it. As many of problems there is with this book, there are bits and pieces that are great. The writing style is good, it's the story structure that needs work.

Happy Reading

-E.A. Walsh