Friday, February 6, 2015

Review: The Shadow Prince by Bree Despain

The Shadow Prince by Bree Despain
Published: March 11th, 2014 (Egmont)
Pages: 512
Source: ARC via Edelweiss
Series: Into the Dark, #1
Buy the book: Bookdepository
Rating: ★★☆☆☆




Where do I start with this one? As soon as I heard about it and the possibility of it being a Persephone retelling (or at least somewhat based on Greek mythology), I knew I had to read it. Admittedly, I waited an awful long time to finally actually read it. And when I did, I'm sad to say I was disappointed.

Daphne moves in with her estranged father and she starts attending Olympus Hills High. While there, she meets Haden, who is of course gorgeous but also kind of creepy because he immediately tries to lure her back to the Underworld because that was the task he was assigned before he got to the mortal world. When this fails, he tries to build up a relationship with her and the story evolves.

With The Shadow Prince being a Persephone retelling, it's bound to be filled with clichés, and it is. I found it hard to set these aside and really get into the story. There wasn't anything that managed to hook me and lure me in, so the story never really came to life for me. Both Haden and Daphne were sort of bland, although Daphne did have her moments. There was just nothing outstanding about The Shadow Prince. The chemistry between Haden and Daphne is just okay and honestly I couldn't care less if they got together or not.

However, I still managed to finish this 500+ page book which is mostly due to Despain's story telling. Everyone who knows me know how easily I give up on books if they don't manage to engage me so there's definitely that. Though I wasn't hooked, I still wanted to know how it was going to end and what was happening. And when made it to the end, I felt like I finally arrived at the interesting stuff -- only for the book to end.

So basically, The Shadow Prince felt like a massive buildup to the story, which I assume will fully take off in The Eternity Key. I'm not sure if I want to read that because I kind of felt disappointed I had just made my way through a 500 page introduction, but I must admit it has me curious. I mean, just the mention of a quest is usually enough to draw me in, so I might just go ahead and pick it up. Sometime.

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