Saturday, June 16, 2018

The Power of Mercy by Fiona Zedde

The Power of MercyThe Power of Mercy by Fiona Zedde

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I received an ARC of this book from Ylva Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

One note before I continue: I note above that this is an ‘ARC’. That’s because I read the ARC version of this book – having requested it as an ‘additional’ book to review when I requested June 2018 books to review.

I hate being in this position and I feel blindsided by it for two reasons. 1) I’ve only ever read one other story by this author, and I liked it – giving me a faint idea I might also like this one, though not the confidence I would; 2) the people I follow, and friends who have read this work seemed to have loved this book. I didn’t going in assuming that I’d like it because of 1, nor that I’d love it because of 2, but those were certainly issues of feeling blindsided.

I do no really understand this book. The mystery: Someone has been killing, Mai, for reasons that completely elude me, looks into investigating the case (why her? She’s a bloody teacher for fuck sake, sure, in her spare time she jumps around saving humans who get themselves into trouble, but that involves running into burning buildings, saving people from flipped cars, and the like, not doing investigations or fighting complex villain plans; so again, why the fuck Mai? Because there is no one else? Fuck no – there are the ‘Enforcers’ who are quite powerful and quite capable of tackling the investigation. So why didn’t they handle the case? For the fucking reason that fucking cops get taken off cases because it’s personal. Because it’s Mai’s uncle who is the latest victim – police/investigators/whatever GET TAKEN OFF CASES LIKE THIS, not given the case to investigate, for fuck sake (also she’s one of the ‘weaker’ super powered people around, you know, just to toss that in there as well as a reason for her NOT to be the investigator)). The mystery was crap.

The romance: just what the fuck did I read romance wise? Or: what romance? Mai fucks random women whenever she feels like it – the book opens with her standing on the roof nearish another random unknown woman; the big ‘romance’ in the story involves her fucking some woman she doesn’t really know, but at least knows her name, but they don’t have a relationship. They have lust. They both act like cats on catnip – MUST FUCK YOU!!!! There’s no mental process involved here. No ‘she’s nice’, no ‘I wish to date her’, there’s just ‘FUCK HER NOW!!!!!’. Fuck sake. The romance is crap.

What else is there? The main character hates her life, hates her family, hates everything, including herself. She’s literally been abused and tortured by her family her entire life. She’s angsting 24/7. She’s like an overly emotional teenager ‘having feelings’. Does she have a reason to act that way? Well, yes, but still, painful to read.

This was a painful book to read beginning to end. There are no redeemable characters here. Every fucking member of Mai’s family is an asshole, at least to Mai (for the most part). Her students, eh, the only one that actually gets a name just won’t take no from the teacher, Mai, she’s lusting after. Fuck her. The victims? We only really learn about one of the victims, the one I already mentioned, the uncle – who is the biggest asshole of all time. The killer should get a medal for killing this asshole - kind of asshole.

I wonder if I read some side draft instead of the book everyone else read. Because, seriously, I do not understand this book. Mai’s lust interest, a fellow teacher, acts super bitchy to Mai when they finally have a conversation, that teacher basically and loudly condemns Mai as ‘yet another teacher who fucks her students’ without actually knowing anything about Mai. Even so . . . they decide to fuck for some reason? I mean, they are in a kind of hate mode when Mai is at her car door to leave and . . . suddenly they are kissing? And fucking? Right there in the street (seriously, I need to stop using seriously, that’s one of the reasons that I think I might have read a draft because that’s the way that particular scene went – they were at a car door, and suddenly they were fucking. When it was over they were at an apartment without actually going to it. WTF?)

I hate asking for a book, getting it, and loathing it from beginning to end. I only completed this book because it was I requested.

If I hadn’t read and enjoyed a work by this author before trying this one here, I’d break my longstanding rule of giving authors multiple chances, and, after reading this book here, strike the author from the list of authors I’m willing to read. Because of this book. But I had read that other work so . . . I can’t do that.

Rating: 1.1

June 16 2018




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