Slightly Underwhelmed

So, I waited eagerly for my copy of the newest Mary Janice Davidson Undead book to arrive in the mail. Yeah, yeah, I could have bought it in the store but without my beautiful discount, I went for the cheapest route. The new one is:



This is the second in a three book arc. I reread the previous one (which came out a year ago) just to refresh my memory and, well, because I simply enjoy these books that much.

Only, I wish I hadn't.

A decent chunk of the beginning of the book is taken up with the main character, Betsy, rambling on about what happened in the past book. Someone died and she feels guilty about it so she's very distracted. While this could be seen as "realistic" thinking, it's annoying that it seems to go on forever. Plus, it felt like she just copied whole sentences from the last book. Now, this may not be the case but I am not going to spend time comparing what is essentially a déjà vu sensation. It doesn't help that another character, Marc, also does a little reiterating just in case we missed it from Betsy. The worst thing is that this all happens after a brief synopsis of "the story thus far."

At any rate, her books may look long at almost 300 pages but a lot of that is eaten up with margins and spacing. I love the series and have recommended it to a lot of people but this one I recommend with a cautious, just give it time. The story does eventually pick back up in pace and the last half of the book gives some good story.

Part of me feels bad to be dissing it because she mentioned in her "acknowledgements" (yes, I actually read those) that last year was hellish with a lot of family stuff (deaths, etc). But the other side feels that if all of it was affecting her work, someone should have helped her more or given her more time or something. That's why we do revisions.

I am looking forward to the next book but I doubt I'll reread this one again before the next one because, frankly, she'll probably just reiterate the whole damn thing again. (sigh) I hope she doesn't. Or, at least, sticks with the "story thus far" section in the beginning. Us Betsy fans don't need all of that inner dialogue stuff about the past. We want some juicy story bits. And newbies who are clueless enough to pick up the latest in a series will be able to catch up just fine with that brief synopsis.

Hmmmm

I'm thinking that I will give this a whirl again. I've done a decent amount of reading in the past few months so I think I should give it a whirl. I like reviewing and stuff so we'll see if I can keep up with it. Let's hope so.