The white forest

My full review can be found at SFF Book Review

This book started out very interesting. The setting and style took me in immediately and the protagonist's strange gift - she can hear and fell the “souls” of inanimate objects - was intriguing enough to keep me going for a while. Additionally, Jane's best friend, Nathan Ashe, has disappeared, so she and her other friend Maddy set out to investigate and bring Nathan back... if he's still alive, that is.

What sounds intriguing turned into one of the most tedious novels I've read lately. The intricate prose kept me going long after I was already annoyed with the plot. The heroine constantly loses herself in memories instead of acting. We are fed the tiniest bits of (mostly useless) information but the plot simply doesn't move forward. I read more than half of this novel and when, by then, there still was only one clue as to what Jane's gift is, I gave up.

I read the last few pages to find out the secret - and it left me incredibly underwhelmed. I was too lazy to look for what happened to Nathan and (I think this speaks for itself) I really didn't care. The author certainly knows how to write beautifully and some characters have potential. The tension between Jane and Maddy was quite interesting but taking all things into consideration, none of these positive points are enough to make a good book.