Author: Ciye Cho
Date of Publication: August 10, 2013
Formats Available: E-book
Buy This Book: Amazon
Synopsis: Far beyond heaven, earth and hell is a city known as Palladino, a place ruled by ghosts and filled with demons, magic, and all sorts of darkly beautiful things. A city where no one can ever escape.
Eighteen-year-old Rory is a cake decorator who makes stunning confections. But no amount of frosting or miracles can save her when a demon kidnaps her—and carries her to Palladino. Here, Rory ends up in a deadly charm school where young women are forced to become companions for the Ghost Lords. And for her to survive, Rory must become everything that she isn’t: graceful, elegant... and perfect.
But nothing is what it seems in Palladino. Not the magic. Not the ghosts. And definitely not Martin Marius, the bizarre Ghost Lord-slash-inventor who is drawn to Rory. For amid a thousand machines and a hundred cats, Martin holds a secret that could change everything. A secret that could either free Rory... or destroy her.
My Review:
When I heard the synopsis for Rory I knew that I had to read it! The whole story sounded right up my alley and I was excited to see what this novel had in store for me. I was engaged by the first sentence and I really enjoyed reading about the world of ghosts that Cho had created.
I really liked the idea behind Rory and I was fascinated by the demons and the world of Palladino. Rory was a fun character to read about and I loved her spunk and determination. Not only was Rory a great character but I also enjoyed the unique cast of secondary characters Cho created; from Manny the demon and Martin the inventor/love interest/ghost. I was absolutely fascinated by the portion of the novel taking place in the charm school, with potentially deadly challenges and scary headmistresses. The charm school was a great way to introduce the world of Palladino and it really drew me into the story.
However, even though this book started off well enough I just lost interest after Rory completed charm school. The rest of the book seemed to drag on and on and on and I was bored by most of the events that took place. The end of the novel started to pick up a little bit when Rory finally started learning more about Martin and his inventions, however it just took so long to get there that I had already lost interest in the characters and it was hard to get that interest back. There was a lot of potential for exciting events it just felt like every time something happened it was cut short or had a solution that seemed almost too easy.
Although I was a little put off by the pacing Cho did a great job writing the novel. There were a few spots here and there but overall I though the novel flowed extremely well and the writing pulled me into the story. The characters were wonderfully developed and I loved learning more about each of them. I just wish the pacing had been a little bit better, with a better pace I definitely would have given this novel a higher rating than I did.
Overall Rory was an enjoyable book though a little slow in the middle. The ending sets up the story for an interesting sequel and I'm interested to see where this goes. Fans of indie YA and paranormal reads may want to check this one out, it has a lot of potential!
3/5
*I received a copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment