Review
“Yes, it’s a bit like learning French. When you open your mouth, you risk sounding like an idiot. But if you don’t take that chance, you’ll never speak at all.”
A story that follows two narratives; one of a writer [Darcy] and the other her novel [Lizzie]. The concept, on its own, is unique. It tugs at readers’ interest especially since it gives a glimpse of the publishing world while at the same time providing us with a story that one of the main characters actually wrote.
Alternating with the two stories, this book is easily a contemporary-romance and a paranormal fantasy fiction with each respective narrative. It plays with the Instalove trope which was hideously executed. The way the romance was laid out was nothing but mere comedy. It was feeble in its attempt to drive butterflies into my stomach and as much as I try to digest the facts of their partnership, it just doesn’t work. The sapphic relationship has no real foundation and wasn’t given much focus in the progression of the story. Their relationship revolves in cheap and petty banters—as expected when you try to get into a relationship with someone who you basically don’t know anything about.
Taking the light off of the trope; the characters were dense and both leads are nothing more than self-absorbed individuals. They did not feel three-dimensional—it’s as if they were just there for the sake of being there. They didn’t exude even a miniscule level of connection with the reader. Moreover, the conflict of the story was wasted as the book progresses. The pitch of the book was extremely strong and it sets off in high but went completely downhill for the rest of the novel.
‘Afterworlds’ is a novel that I had high expectations for ever since I saw it in one of Katytastic‘s vlogs ages ago. I, perhaps, could have had a different opinion for the book if I’ve read it at the time but reading it now, it just wasn’t for me. The novel is weak in all of its aspects. The writing style is accessible though that alone cannot carry the entire novel. There was so much placement of events that the book lost its glamour in the wake of trying to be something it was not. Hence, it could’ve been better if the trajectory of the conflicts were minimized and the focus remained in trying to make the characters more realistic and the world more pronounced.
