Betrayed by Pretty Colors: Betwixt

So, for writers out there who want me to read their books, you better spend a good deal of time on the title and your cover. Because I'll tell you right now, I do judge a book by its cover. I'm not ashamed of that; I don't want to be reading a book in public with a cover that looks like a nine-year-old designed it and have people looking at it like "What cheap nonsense is this girl reading—she’s probably barely literate." No, sir—I am quite literate and I want people to know it. So writers, don't skimp on your book covers and/or spend practically no time considering your title  thinking "Oh people will read it anyway," because I certainly won't.  And if I have to see another poem titled "Untitled" I will burn it, and quite possibly the author as well.

Of course, that vain little habit of mine, like most vain little habits, sometimes gets me into trouble. For example, Tara Bray Smith's Betwixt. Yellow cover, mysterious butterfly lady-face, lovely word choice for a title (I love a good random word title)--feels a little outdated but almost classic in its minimalistic design. It catches my eye in the bookstore and I'm immediately intrigued. I barely even read the back of it because I'm thinking "Oooo, bright yellow! How pretty. This book is going to be awesome."

This book is NOT awesome. It is quite possibly the worst book I’ve ever read. Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but I will tell you I couldn’t even finish this book. And I’m really not someone who makes a decision like that lightly—I feel that in order to have a comprehensive opinion of a book you have to see it through to the end so that even if its merits are few, you are aware of all of them. But this book is just so terrible I got fed up with it and tossed it.

And the saddest part about it is that it shouldn’t be as bad as it is. The idea behind the book is actually very intriguing, verging on original even. The story is a (very) little bit like Tithe. There’s this group of teenagers who are basically changelings (kids who were replaced with fey/faerie creatures as children). They’ve never known it and yet somehow they’ve always felt it—they’ve always been a little off and a little magical. So basically they’re stalked by this guy named Moth who is also a changeling, but he already knows it. And he’s very mysterious and beats around the bush about what they really are for a while before having them come to this ceremony, that seems like a concert to humans, called the Ring of Fire. And there all is revealed. These kids are told they’re meant to accept their fey spirits and once they do they’ll ascend to basically the heaven/paradise of the fey.

As for the characters, they’re actually very interesting. They’re conflicted and dynamic. They aren’t inherently evil or good characters and their personalities are as unusual as real human personalities. One character is even almost incestuous—how’s that for edgy. Plus, the fey are the creepy, twisted magical creatures I’m such a fan of. And all of this is why I kept reading it hoping it would get better—I really wanted to follow the story and the characters.

Unfortunately, the writing almost completely blotted out all the books other redeeming qualities. There is just something wrong with it. It’s so frustrating. It’s not that there are a lot of grammatical errors or anything, it’s just that it doesn’t make sense. And not in a good way like “Oh this book is going to be confusing but it’s a masterpiece,” but in a “What? That doesn’t make any sense!” *toss book across the room and glare at it* way. The writing reads like no one else read it before she published it. Like it just came out of her head and no one bothered to tell her, “So, um, yeah I have no clue what you’re saying here.” I mean, I was a writing tutor—I’m all for maintaining a writer’s voice while you’re editing. But you can’t just leave everything the way it is if the writer is incoherent. The plot is complicated enough without the writer’s inability to describe things in a consistent way that makes sense.

And the dialogue is atrocious. Sometimes you can’t figure out who’s talking to whom and sometimes it just sucks altogether. Smith didn’t spend enough time working on emulating real, teenage conversation. The dialogue is forced, confusing, and sometimes it’s trying way too hard to sound young and hip. In defense of the dialogue (though I really don’t know why I’m defending something I hated so much), it’s possible the writer is just from a completely different dialectic area where people really talk like that. But, as a long time resident of the Northeast, I have to say she’s not from around here.

So, you may be tempted (as I was) to read this book because of its intriguing title and cover, but I'm telling you, don't drink the Kool-Aid! In all seriousness, you can certainly try to read this book. And more power to you if you like it more than I did. But in my opinion this is definitely one for the box.