Seven Black Diamonds by Melissa Marr (Review)

Date Finished: January 26, 2018

Page Count: 381

Genre: Fantasy

 

            Meh, it was a disappointment.

            I’ll be honest though, I thought it might an awesome book since the cover had a bleeding flower (plants don’t bleed so it must be some otherworldly fun right?) but, nope, this book merely had untapped potential and characters as forgettable as my dog’s age (and I forget her age all the time). I’ll get into all I hate however, right after I touch up on what was cool about the story.

            For one I like how were simply thrust into the story. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but things got explained at the appropriate times, albeit not always in the most appropriate way, so it worked in this book. It makes the plot feel more natural if that makes any sense, call it being give a window into history. It’s like how most books don’t start with the birth of the main character but rather at a crucial point in their life. This is a bit more extreme though because rather than having narration or the characters sit down for some tea and exposition the plot just throws you in there, so you have to be on your toes, just like with life.

            I also enjoyed how the world these people live in is overcome by pollution and degradation of the environment. Personally I fell as though in reality humanity isn’t too far off from that future (though I’d like to think otherwise) but seeing stories incorporate that idea into their timelines and having the characters have to deal with it is pretty cool.

            Now onto what I disliked about the story!

            Lilywhite, the main character, was “the chosen one.” I don’t normally have a problem with this, but when Lily was introduced as the daughter of a crime lord and then started mentioning how she had four affinities which were more than the average fae I felt betrayed. Lily just isn’t the most standout main character, nor is she the best written. Her interactions with other characters are limited (the same goes for everyone in the book) so I can’t judge if she’s worth of doing anything other than romancing or thinking about what she should do. I felt as if she was given this power but unworthy to wield it and that’s a bad thing since Marr probably wasn’t trying to make me feel that way. Please Marr, have you characters do more than sit and look pretty. They’re all so stiff; I really don’t care about them to read the second book One Blood Ruby.

            I also disliked how small this world was. Not in a literal way, but hardly anything was expanded on or explained enough. There was enough explanation to inform me of the history of the world but not enough to make me care about it. Hardly any of Lily’s home, school or the world of the fae was explored or explained in depth. We don’t know this world Marr, so tell us about it so we can care dang it! I swear, the one place that seemed to get a lot of dirt on it was the freaking club the diamonds hung out at and that was stupid. I’m not even sure if those kids went to school for Pete’s sake! But I digress, it made the setting feel extremely shallow and flat which sucked. There were also very few characters in that book who interacted with each other. You have the seven black diamonds, the two fae monarchs, the three almost conspirators, the two poop head brothers, Lily’s dad and his lover, Lily’s former love interest and that’s all the important people. In total that’s 17 characters but they were also so flat and lifeless it was like there were only three characters in the entire thing and those were the characters who were narrating the chapters. Heck, most of the time (and maybe I’ve already pointed this out) everyone was thinking about the past, the future or romance. BORING. Come one Marr, you’re a successful author, I’m sure you can do better than that. These things pretty much ruined everything about the book for me as I like my foundation to be nice and solid and thick all right? Nothing else to it.

            So yeah, book has potential but fails with basic setting and characters to be memorable or appeasing and I’m sorry such a beautiful cover had to be wasted on a mediocre book. Just look at that cover though, it us so beautiful I wish plants bled in real life. But when you think about it, wouldn’t stepping on grass always cause blood to get on your feet/shoe soles? Would plants also scream in agony as well? I think that’d be pretty mess up man, for real. But yeah! Don’t read this book unless you want to kill time or like paper thin romances!