Compulsion

“But the people who mattered were the people you chose instead of the people who were yours by an accident of birth. Real family was heart as much as, if not more than, blood.”

It was not amazing, but it wasn't terrible either. There was potential, I liked the old, dying south atmosphere and the mysteries surrounding the three key families. Not a lot goes on throughout the entire book, which I didn't mind that much because it was still very readable, the author has a pleasant writing style, nonetheless, I was expecting something darker with more suspense and I was disappointed to find a watered down version of what was promised in the the synopsis.

Most of the characters are pretty cliché, but they didn't bother me too much, I kept reading hoping I will find an answer to the curse. Barrie is your run-of-the-mill bland, stubborn, impulsive special snowflake. She makes a lot of stupid decisions, of course, it took her forever to find out pretty obvious things. Eight was also very uninteresting and I couldn't care less about their “relationship”, I mostly sped through their romantic scenes together and pretended they were not a part of the story, Eight was there just to give Barrie a romantic interest. But I did enjoy the part with them finding out what happened to their great aunt and uncle.

The mythology aspect could have been great, but I feel like the research was done poorly, therefore the result was a hodge-podge of mythological components borrowed from different cultures that did not make a lot of sense together.

All in all, it was an okay read, however not good enough to make me want to continue with the rest of the series any time soon.