Review: Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria

I wanted so badly to love this book. Because it looks gorgeous and sounded awesome. Sadly it was not the case for me. Ended up being a two star. And not very positive. It took ages for me to read this book, which was a bad thing, as it never seemed to get better at all. Beginning was good, but it went downhill after that.

Not fully sure how to describe this book. It was all kinds of long, yet my review will not be all that long, cause not much happened in this story. It took forever to read, but there wasn't much going on. Which was disappointing. There are also six different point of views. Yeah. Mostly just four, but still. It was too many, honestly.

Which I think I feel because I did not care at all for any of these characters. Ugh. I felt like this book tried too hard. Tried too hard to make it all be dark and interesting. Tried too hard to make the characters be special, different and amazing. To me, personally, all of it failed. There was no romance in this book. A little bit of it, and it was not good. I did not really understand why any of these five main characters were friends. Hmm. A few flashback scenes from each point of view, of how they met. Which was beyond boring. The writing was not very good, yet not completely bad either. I just couldn't connect with any of these characters. Wanted to love all of them. But I did not. Not even a little bit. Felt like they all tried too hard to be like characters from different books.

Hmph. I'm feeling all kinds of disappointed about it, as I really did want to love this book. Ugh. But it was impossible for me to love it. The world could have been exciting to read about. Seems like it is set in the past, yet kind of fantasy too. But the world is not explained enough. I feel like I don't really know anything about it, after having finished. This was more of a character book, I think. Which was sadly not for me at this time. Since I disliked all of these characters a bunch. Hmph. World could have been so great, though.

This book is told from the point of view of a bunch of sixteen year olds. There was Cassa, whom is sort of the leader among these friends. Her parents were big rebels, until every rebel was killed four years ago. Cassa is full of hate and anger towards the people in charge of this town. Felt like I could have loved her so much. I did not. Felt like I didn't get to know her at all. There was Vesper, her most best friend. Except she betrayed them in the beginning, and was not in this book much at all. And I didn't like her either. Sigh.

There was Evander, whom Cassa was together with for a while, until they broke it off together. Yet they are still friends. There were a few short flashbacks about their time together, which was just awkward, to be honest, as there was zero romance between them at the present time. I sort of liked Evander. But felt like he too tried too hard. Then his sister, Alys. Sort of liked her too, but did not care much about her, to be honest. She is always falling apart, yet not really. It was never explained well enough. Wanted more.

There was also Newt. Who was supposed to be the broken shy boy whom everyone loved. Yeah. I didn't buy that. I did not like him very much, to be honest. He has had a crush on Evander for years, and it may finally happen. Sadly I felt nothing for either of them, so the kind of romance was incredibly disappointing. Was not written well, sadly. The sixth point of view was from the leader of this town. He was there a little bit only. I did not like him at all. Sigh. Too many point of views, too little action and story. So disappointed.

There is not really much I want to say about this book, so I will keep it short. Sort of. I never write short reviews, and this ended up being way longer than it was supposed to, haha. But anyway. This book takes place over maybe a couple of days. Which might be why I did not connect with any of it. The plot was so very short. Not much happens. Not much about characters outside of the main ones. So to me, all of this book fell short. And I don't feel like writing about the plot at all, I'm sorry to say. Wish all had been better.

The writing bothered me a whole lot. At times it was pretty great. But most of the time it was not. I kind of blame the last book I read, where I noticed words I have never heard of before being used many times on every single page. Almost the same thing was done in this. There were tons of words I have never heard about. And it was highly annoying to read when it was full of big and complicated words that did not really fit in with the story. Hmph. I did not manage to connect to any of the characters, which was disappointing.

The one thing I liked a bunch about this book was the monster beneath the citadel. He was interesting to read about. He was dark and awesome. Kind of horrible, sure, but reading about this character was the only bright spot, the one thing that kept me reading. Until the book ruined that too. Sigh. Could have been done so much better. I also did not care for the ending. At all. It's a standalone and I did not feel like there should be anything after this book. And yeah, one of the main characters ends up dead. Sigh. So typical.

Huge thank you to Amulet, the lovely UK publisher, for sending me an ARC copy of this stunning book my way. I will treasure it. Feeling sad this book was not for me, though. As I also got the hardcover, which is the version of the book I read. Hmph. But I'm happy that I gave this book a try. Sadly, Beneath the Citadel was nothing like I had hoped it would be. It ended up disappointing me a lot. Sure there are lots of others who will end up loving it tons, though. But for me, it was simply not a good book. Wish it had been better.

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