Review: Above

Above by Isla Morley

My rating: 2 of 5 stars




I received a copy of Above from the publisher in return for an honest review.

After reading the blurb for Above I was really intrigued and looking forwards to reading and although I enjoyed it to start with, it lost me just after the half way mark.

The first half of the book held my attention. The story of the abduction and the scenes and events in captivity were done well. The author did a nice job of projecting the fear, loneliness and hopelessness of the main character Blythe Hallowell and her situation.

The middle of the book where the first half blends into the second half is where everything went wrong for me, it wasn't smooth and totally disrupted the flow of the story and started to drag.

The second half actually felt like another book, the pace, tension and atmosphere totally changed and was nowhere near as good as the first half. It lacked the world building needed to hold my attention and make the situation believable. The ending kind of picked up a little but not enough, it was still a bit of a slog to get through and was lacking too much for me.

It took me a bit to get into the story to start with because I couldn't connect with the character as soon as I would have liked to and I don't feel like I really connected and felt for Blythe like I should have in a book that covers a topic like this. There are times when it felt a bit jumpy, I would be reading and start the next line only to realise it had moved onto something else or a little further on in the timeline all of a sudden and I found that confusing and off putting.

It wasn't an awful read but it wasn't a great read either. I think perhaps it would have worked better if each half was expanded and was it's own book rather than feeling like two books squeezed into one as it does now.

Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
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