Book #21

[katikat]

"Three Days to Dead (Dreg City #1)" by Kelly Meding

Rating: ♣ ♣ ♣

Quite an interesting book, full of action and intrigue, that had me interested enough to look up more books in the series. So, why only 3 stars?

During the first half, it was a 5 star book for me. Evy and Wyatt were kicking ass together and taking no names, they were equal partners but... as more details about what happened resurfaced, Evy turned from likable to bitchy with issues greater than everybody else's and Wyatt became a sniveling lovesick fool who could only moan and shuffle his feet. Seriously, Wyatt was her BOSS, for Christ's sake, yet he mostly just whined and wrung his hands while Evy ordered everybody around, even the Handlers of other Triads. And again, rape was used as tool for female "empowerment" *sigh* So suddenly, Evy was reborn and Gifted and kick-ass and the boss of everything in sight... No, just no.

And their relationship... most of the time, I felt that Evy considered Wyatt's love off-putting or downright annoying. Yes, it's perfectly okay for a woman not to reciprocate a man's feelings. But Evy... her moods almost gave me a whiplash. I never knew how she would react to him. Would she be annoyed? Or suddenly feel attracted to him again? Never once did I feel she actually loved him. Even her "he was the only one she cared about" despair felt... well, definitely not as love. If that was the author's intention, to make it obvious Evy didn't love Wyatt, that she was just succumbing to her new body's attraction to him, then yeah, she succeeded.

Also, the mythology was quite confusing. So many races - vampires, goblins, whatnot - and the author felt she needed to give every one of them her own twist, up to calling them Dregs, Bloods, Halfies, I-don't-know-what, and that got confusing quite fast, especially coupled with Triads and Handlers and Hunters and the alliance that was but wasn't... It was just overly complicated.

So yeah, I'm still interested in reading more about the world, I just hope that the author learns to balance out her characters better. I prefer men and women as equals, not one kicking ass, the other sniveling in a corner.