SPINDLE by EK Johnston \\ Just Not Enough . . .

Review by Jackie

SPINDLE

by E.K. Johnston

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion (December 6, 2016)
Language: English

The world is made safe by a woman...but it is a very big world.

It has been generations since the Storyteller Queen drove the demon out of her husband and saved her country from fire and blood. Her family has prospered beyond the borders of their village, and two new kingdoms have sprouted on either side of the mountains where the demons are kept prisoner by bright iron, and by the creatures the Storyteller Queen made to keep them contained.

But the prison is crumbling. Through years of careful manipulation, a demon has regained her power. She has made one kingdom strong and brought the other to its knees, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When a princess is born, the demon is ready with the final blow: a curse that will cost the princess her very soul, or force her to destroy her own people to save her life.

The threads of magic are tightly spun, binding princess and exiled spinners into a desperate plot to break the curse before the demon can become a queen of men. But the web of power is dangerously tangled--and they may not see the true pattern until it is unspooled.

This is what I expected: color and lights and evil of the darkest kind (the kind that sets your soul on fire, and causes earthquakes, and predators to hunt) and a girl who was going to triumph in her own right. And while I got some of it (sort of?) I didn’t get near the amount that I was hoping for.

This is what I got: I got a slow-paced story, characters who I felt almost nothing for, and a dark spirit who did approximately nothing with her day-to-day activities. She waited. And waited. Annnnd waited. I got a group of friends trapped in the middle of no where on a journey to somewhere, and really, I was just bored. After the perfection that is A THOUSAND NIGHTS, this fell flat. I desperately wanted to love the characters, but I really just didn’t. Like, at all. I can say maybe this, maybe that all day long—I assume you’d rather me explain myself.

So, the question, dear reader, is how could I love the first book in this sort of duology, and not the second book that, for all intents and purposes, is in the same vein.

WELL THAT’S A GREAT QUESTION. THANKS FOR ASKING.

The evil wasn’t evil enough. This was like I was making black tea, but had the brew time of a green tea. (5 minuets versus 45 seconds) WHAT I AM SAYING THAT, WHEN A CHARACTER IS SUPPOSED TO BE DEATH INCARNATE, MAKE THEM SO THAT THERE ARE ICE CRYSTALS IN THEIR EYES AND SO THAT WHERE THEY WALK, THINGS TURN INTO CRISPS. 

The people who were supposed to be all ‘save the world’ were just sort of there. Little Rose and her compatriots. I wasn’t really feeling it.

The quest was not really a quest but more like aimless wandering with some chit-chat. Give me a reason to want the to succeed. Give me a reason to not want to set the book back on my shelf and come back at a different time.

To be fair, my dislike for SPINDLE had, in part, to do with I was so not in the mood for it. I was still able to recognize that the prose the author brought was killer. Gorgeous descriptions. It just fell flat in the connection aspect.

Arguably, that’s the most important part.

In the end, while I did finish reading it (hoping and wishing and wanting it to get better) I wouldn’t read it again.