Selan

God, this book is dull.

It shouldn't be dull. It's David Almond, for crying out loud. His books are awesome. But this one, perhaps because it was fairly recent, is not. Maybe it's because it's supposed to be romance. Mr Almond, don't try to write romance.

Oh, I've got nothing against the romance parts of the book. I do have something against repeating the same descriptions and tedious banter again and again and again until it feels like the author is just trying to fill extra space in the book!

Btw, this is basically a retelling of the story of Orpheus. Which is great. I'm a great fan of Greek mythology. Unfortunately, the Orpheus in this book didn't feel like a hopeless romantic pining after his lost love. He was presented as an old tramp with a lute that they met on the beach.

Seriously.

Nothing happened in this book! Nothing at all - for about 3/4 of the book anyway. I was skim-reading so many useless chapters, it made no bloody difference whether I skipped them or not. They meant nothing.

Then suddenly something DOES happen, and you're like whoa what, and this is near the end of the story. And then some weird stuff happens, the plot inches forward a little, and then it's over and you've kind of wasted your reading time.

I mean, it's not a terrible book? But nothing fricking happens. It just feels pointless.

Also, the girls do much more kissing with each other than ANY of the boys. And I don't mean platonically. Either they're bisexual, or the author thinks that girls act like this. I'm going for the latter, being bi myself. I like that part of the book. Read it for the gay.