Sweet Oblivion

Sweet Oblivion

by Bailey Ardisone

No book talk... just venting.

I have waited two days to review this because I felt like I needed some space, but this was just awful and time isn't helping.  I just don't understand the ratings on this one.  There are so very many corny cliches, as well as obvious discrepancies that this book is just really predictable and fairly bad. Nariella was fostered by a wonderful woman and an abusive man.  When the woman dies, Nari is left with the abusive guy and forced into a Cinderella-like life of keeping the house spotless, even when he destroys it, or she can't go to the bal... umm... the willow tree to meet her BFF. Just before she turns 18, she meets a mysterious guy with mysterious powers who has mysterious people following him looking for a mysterious place. 

ooookaaaayyy... 

There are so many plot holes and issues here including having no friends all her life, but suddenly having a pair of fraternal twins move to town who both think she's super cool. And the boy she's rejected, who moved away, has also moved back, so now she's got a whole clique going.

About 3/4 of the way through, someone seems to have told Ardisone that the plot holes were a little too massive, so she drops in some things to explain stuff like why Nari would still be at the home of a foster parent after the wife died. With or without the abuse, someone would have come to check up on her from time to time since she was a foster and not formally adopted. But let's just drop in a page or two to say that she was a foundling who was never reported and therefore never really a foster child. Oh! And Nari's BFF is discovered to be an amazing archer at pretty much the exact same time, so you know that that will be important later.

Nari is also fascinated by twins, not just her new friends, but she makes a comment early on about how she wished she had one, and, of course, there's a parallel story with Namine, who you just KNOW is Nari's long-lost twin (though that's not revealed here, it surely will be in the second book).

There's a simple saying that what you don't know can hurt you and yet, Nari is kept in the dark by her mysterious stranger over and over again even when she's in the most dangerous situations.  People tell her nothing and she seems to be OK with that. She also can't keep her own mouth shut and tells people all kinds of things that probably shouldn't be said, which means that will probably come back to haunt her in the future.

This is bad with tons of talking and sudden emoting with no real explanation or development. It's just not well-written and I have no need to read anymore.