Book 1 in the All Souls Trilogy
AUTHOR: Deborah Harkness
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban fantasy, witches, vampires, romance
PREMISE: Diana Bishop discovers a book deep in the archives of the Oxford library and soon comes under the attention of the supernatural.
MY REVIEW: Sigh. I really wanted to like this. By all means I should: I mean witches! In Oxford! That's a awesome premise, right? But no, the author didn't focus on that. Instead apparently I'm supposed to care more about the oh so predictable and boring romance between "I'm plain, really" Diana and "I'm Edward Cullen minus the sparkles" Matthew. UGH. Once again, I blame Twilight.
This started out so promising too. I loved the idea when it first started out. Diana seemed to have SOME common sense. But then Matthew appeared and it quickly went downhill after he decided he was in love after one dinner with Diana (that I'm not even sure counts as a date). And then Diana gains her magic but still somehow always needs to be rescued and coddled by Matthew despite the author insisting to us over and over again how powerful she supposingly is. Oh, and Matthew is basically Edward Cullen only a thousand years older (which makes the relationship with Diana kind of creepy when one thinks about it) and minus the sparkles.
I will say Harkness has some lovely writing and I give her points for being SOMEWHAT more creative than Twilight and hey, look lesbians! But that doesn't change the slightly sexist tone of this story and huge problamatic love interest that is Matthew who is just as bad as Edward Cullen when it comes to stalking/taking away choices from the woman he supposingly loves etc. I feel like the author was trying to make this the intellectual Twilight but I'm sorry...she failed. Spectacularly.
WHO SHOULD READ: Twilight fans
MY RATING: Two out of Five facepalms
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