Not What I was Expecting

"Some vendettas have more lives than others.

The gods walk among us. Some lurk in the shadows, masquerading as mortals; others embrace their celebrity status, launching careers from Hollywood to Capitol Hill.

One of them just murdered Cairn Delacroix's mother."

This is the first bit from the blurb of This Eternity of Masks and Shadows by Karsten Knight.

Oh boy, where to begin with this book? For someone who is supposed to be a bestselling author of over four books I was expecting better world-building and characterization. Maybe that was my problem, I expected it was going to be good and wound up in a river of disappointment because I feel awful for saying this but for a majority of the book it felt like the characters were going through the motions. There was no real I feel for you let me root for you to get what you want. I had no clue what the characters wanted half the time and I almost gave up on this book fifty times because the characters were one dimensional. They did to slightly get some definition toward them nearing the end of the book, but half of the characters were already dead by that point.

I found most of the story unbelievable and have you ever heard the sound a Canadian Lynx makes? I could not take Squall, the Canadian Lynx Cairn's mother smuggles across the border from Canada, seriously and I laughed every time the lynx came onto the scene. I wanted so much more then this book was willing to offer like a relationship between Cairn and her dad. Honestly, the dad could have been left out entirely and not affected the story at all. He seemed more like an afterthought than an actual character that is crucial to the story.

Cairn gets what she wants the moment we get told what she wants (her best friend Delphine to return her feelings of affection) within the first three pages which turns me off because I want the characters to work for what they want. I want to root for them to get their love interest but when you take it away within the first minute of the book I am going to be rooting for something to happen that splits them apart. I need something to root for. 

Another problem, most of the book is us being told what is going on and not being shown what is going on. I wanted to hold onto something concrete to immerse myself in the world, but I could not even do that and it hurts so much to have that happen in a book.

This book has so much potential if the author fleshed out the characters (the gods were more human than the humans), took a deep breath and showed us the world (how did the gods come to walk among humans? Why are they real? Is every single god and goddess in existence out there in the world? If gods are reincarnated and possess the abilities of that myth why do their children not possess any of these abilities? Why did the author pick the gods and goddesses that he did? If there was a second book would he play around with the gods and goddesses some more? Does he not realize that Roman and Greek gods are one and the same so he should have had Mercury also say Hermes and he did not as additional names.) The list could go on and on, but the general gist is that this book could have had a higher review if it did not feel like the author got lazy and could have benefited from reading Save The Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody (coincidentally, I was also reading this at the same time as this book and this book hit home on everything this book was missing.)

2 out of 5 stars.