Rising by Holly Kelly
Clean Teen Publishing © 2014
iBooks Edition
Paranormal Romance
Reviewed by Leah
Well, if Sherry D. Ficklin has the best dedication, then Holly Kelly has the best opening line of her 'About the Author' over at CTP. I couldn't even imagine being a mom and a writer. Well, okay I could imagine it, but that's a serious workload. You have my respect, Kelly. Even if you do lock yourself away and let the kids destroy the house while you write.
Summary:
Rising is a dual narration novel starring deformed human Sara and Dagonian--NOT merman--Xanthus Dimitriou.
On Sara's end of things, she's a twenty year old who is finally independent of her crazy mother. In business for herself as a webpage designer, it's easy for her to avoid contact with most people. Which is good if you're wheelchair bound due to a fin-like deformity instead of legs.
Xanthus, on the other hand, is a powerful Dagonian warrior intent on stopping a brutal war the humans don't even know is coming. An illegal chemical spill near Hawaii claimed thousands of Dagonian lives. Now, they're all thirsting for blood.
Given one year to stop the atrocities, Triton sends Xanthus on his own personal crusade to the surface. In that time, he must send those responsible for the spill to the god while trying to singlehandedly stop the rampant pollution created by the humans. It's a tough job for any Dagonian. And it only gets worse when he smells her.
Now, caught between his duty as a soldier and his desire to protect the innocent, Xanthus is determined to learn all he can of the female half-Dagonian.
By the time the real dangers become clear, they will both make a discovery absolutely divine in nature. Information that could very well come too late.
Initial Thoughts:
Overall, I'm not exactly sure how to describe this one. So I'm just going to rip the bandaid off: it read like a Twilight fan fiction.
That is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. To me. Especially since I was a serious Twi-Hard when I first read the books. And Rising evoked the same kind of feelings in me that allowed me to stay hooked to the Twilight Saga, despite its many issues.
However, there were a lot of similarities that were not of the good kind. And since this is an honest review, I feel the need to call them out.
Characters:
Let's start with Sara. Extra-sweet, good girl, Mary Sue, Bella-esque Sara… The amount of times I just wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled cannot be counted. And the sudden death of her independence once she meets Xanthus is overwhelmingly sad. To be quite honest, I did not like Sara at any point in the story.
Of course, I liked Xanthus even less--the whole first half of the book. He kind-of grew on me towards the end. Not enough to ever land the role of BBW however.
Xanthus reads like Edward on steroids. I'm not even kidding. He is overbearingly overprotective of Sara. I mean, he literally makes a guy piss himself because of her. His creep-factor is off the charts. And his lack of rounding out of character drives me insane. But I'll get into that more in my spoiler section.
To be honest, the only characters I really enjoyed were the secondary ones. Nicole, Sara's mom, was awesome. Xanthus's sister, Adelpha, seemed pretty sweet. And Gretchen was a straight up badass. So why were they all given about ten minutes of screen time and then shooed off because Xanthus and Sara had bigger fish to fry?
Plot & Setting:
Now, normally, all of this would make me back away from a series and say, "You know what, this isn't for me. I'll pass on book two." But you know those emotions I was talking about? Yeah, I just entered a contest to hopefully win a free copy of the second book. And I can't even tell you why.
The more I think critically about this book, the less it appeals to me. Settings are not fully drawn out. The mythology could have had a greater role. Tropes are thrown into the readers' faces without care. And the two leads are the most annoying of anyone. What good could I find in this book that would make me okay with reading a second one? Maybe even a third?
I don't know. There were quite a few cute moments with Xanthus and Sara. But a book cannot thrive off a romance in itself. It needs a plot. Something this book was sorely lacking.
I still somewhat liked it.
The mythology introduced to us in the beginning sounded incredible. I wanted to hear more of the history between the Dagonians and Mer. Of the relationship between Triton and Poseidon. I would have even been okay with Triton's misery for a little longer. I got none of that.
I still somewhat liked it.
And I still don't know why.
Writing Style:
How does it go from good to not-good? How? The writing in the beginning was engaging. It's what got me past "independent" Sara and creepy Xanthus. As the story proceeded and we got a few dashes of action, however, it seemed that the style became more choppy and less consistent. Especially Xanthus's dialogue. It was weird having him go from very proper, older turns of phrase, to slang in about 50 pages. What gives?
Also, and this is an issue I've noticed with a lot of the CTP books I've been reading, but there are some noticeable editing errors. Some are so small as to be just a missing word like 'a'. But I've seen a mistake where two words were absolutely switched around that shouldn't have been. To most people, these issues can be overlooked. For us Grammar Nazis, though, they stand out. And some of them scream like a Siren.
Not really a critique on the style I guess so much as a pet peeve, so I guess that means we get to move into…
Overall Opinon/Spoilers:
This book entertained me. I don't know how. But it did. And so I think I'll read the second one. We'll see.
Now, onto the list of spoilers. Don't read past this point if you want to read this book. (Also, the use of swearing permitted in this section. You are forewarned.)
1. Nothing will make me cheer for Sara at any point than that time she pepper-sprayed Xanthus. Total win. And nothing makes a girl lose respect quite like her making out with him three pages later. Epic fail.
2. Xanthus, you suck. You're supposed to be this badass soldier intent on upholding the law no matter what. You set eyes on a halfbreed Mer and all of a sudden you have performance issues. And it doesn't even take you TWO FUCKING SECONDS to make the decision that you can't kill her. Remind me to never recruit idiots like you for my own private army. If you can't eliminate a threat before it becomes one, you are no use to anyone.
3. I cannot stand Sara's self-deprecating bullshit. Every man that enters into her life sexually harasses her in some way … but 'oh, I'm not pretty or special'. Bite me you Mary Sue, Special Snowflake pest.
4. That ending man. That bloody ending that has everything turning out alright. Happily Ever After bullshit that it is, Triton and Sara's relationship springs up faster than her and Xanthus's instalove. And that's hard to manage. And in what world is it okay to let the would-be killers get off scott free ON LAND where, you know, YOUR DAUGHTER is going to be? Who cares if she doesn't want them dead, YOU KILL THEM BEFORE THEY CAN GET TO HER. Geez, so sick of these characters without a survival bone in their bodies.
Okay, I think I'm done now. I hope. I didn't think I'd rage-rant at the end of that but *shrug*. There you have it folks, my very conflicted feelings for Rising. Go forth and judge it for yourselves.
