Author : Robin LaFevers
Publication date : April 3rd 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The first time I see the crossbow on the cover, I was very sure that this was the book I need to read soon, although soon is more likely (almost) three years later. I love a story about a real heroine, not the coward and indecisive one that is trapped between love triangle. At the first glace, I am convinced enough that this particular heroine, Ismae, is the right one.
Escaped from her forced marriage arranged by her violent father, 17 year old Ismae was rescued by the convent of St. Mortain, the God of Death. She was trained to be a skillful assassin was set free to the royal court to assassinate the enemies of St. Mortain. With the help of a court insider., Duval, she had a mission to rescue the Duchess from the French and her political enemies.
The first pages felt so promising and I continued to read and read and read until finally I realize that this novel has no actual story. Ismae is one of the most boring characters I've ever read. She has no personality nor other traits that make readers fall in love with her. Ismae is the perfect example of one dimensional character nobody will love. I don't care for the main heroine, how would I care about the side characters?
You know, when the main character fails to catch your attention, reading the book would be a torment. Imagine reading pages and pages of a life of the person you don't care. It's just awful. I also find Ismae loved to complain, especially when she had to use her "womanly charm". Okay, I get that it's the skill she dislike, she didn't have to blab it on every page. Those are the reasons why I stopped reading at 40% of the book.
Now, the plot. This book is hugely marketed as a story of an assassin and I cannot wait to tell you that it's misleading. There are no real action involved, just boring narration of her journey and life at court. And the gowns, oh, there are too many narration about gowns which is irritating. I even wonder if she was an assassin or a pageant princess? Out of the 40% progress, I find the gown occasions three times and once assassination. So, yeah, you get the point. Oh, there's no real narration about her weapons, but gown description was very detailed.
Oh, it's also promoted as historical fiction while in fact I didn't find any historical events in it other than the book was set in the past *shrugs*. I did some digging and there's no St. Mortain either, so what's the point? Which historical events/era does this book based on? As a historical fiction lover, I am so annoyed by this. This also makes it tricky to label this post on the genre. I mean, it's not fantasy because I didn't find any mythical creature, it's not historical enough to be classified as a historical fiction and there's no real ghost involved to label it as horror. I use "historical fiction" as the category just because that's how it's marketed, it doesn't mean I agree with it.
The moral of this post is not to take Goodreads review seriously, especially for YA fiction. The rating for this book is almost perfect and I feel cheated. I thought I should give YA books another try, but God, I am grateful I didn't finish Grave Mercy. Why it's so hard to find a good YA novel is beyond me, really! 1 rating for Grave Mercy. No favorite quote, sorry, the dialogues in this book are flat and tad boring none of them are worthy of quoting.
Have you put a book into a DNF list lately? What is it? What made you stop reading?
