REVIEW: Shadow City by Anna Mocikat


A note before I get into this review: I got a copy of this book for free from Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review! Thanks for this opportunity!

 Now, initial thoughts. I was interested in this book, and really wanted to dive into it. Post-apocalyptic stories interest me, and I'm always curious to see how different authors add their own spin on the genre. Therefore, I was looking forward to seeing what Anna Mocikat brought to the table.

 However, I was sadly disappointed. To be upfront, I dropped this book at about 51%, unable to put myself through not enjoying this book anymore.

 So, let's get into it!

 CHARACTERS
Wow, this book has a lot of characters. Let's run through the list, shall we?

 -Jean and Louis, teenage siblings living with their elderly father. They're the first characters we meet, and hardly show up after the first chapter.
-Colton, a stranger with no memory the teens meet in the wastes of LA. He seems to have superpowers, though everything shows he's a perfectly normal human
-Eric, a vampire who used to be a cop
-Bombshell, a cyborg woman
-Vincent, a human "police" officer who dies in the first chapter and whose body then gets possessed by what I think is an angel?
-Eurydice, a rogue vampire who not-Vincent finds incredibly sexy. She works for the bad guys.
-Some gang leader whose name I think is Hunter or something like that? I can't remember and he's not that important anyway.

 That's a lot of people, to put it simply. There's more, too, but I tried to only include those who get perspective sections. It's a lot. The novel does spend most of its time with not-Vincent, Eric, Colton, and Eurydice, but still. All of these characters are given equal amounts of importance at first, and thus the fact that some are dropped or hardly seen seems like a waste.

 They aren't very well-developed, either. Sections of narration from four different characters read practically identically, with no differences between them besides certain lines of thought and actions taken. The character with the most development, in my opinion, is Eric, who mostly seems like a "he's too human" vampire stereotype. Otherwise, the characters don't have much going for them. Eurydice and those she works for are almost cartoonishly evil, and Bombshell's entire personality is "tough and sarcastic." I felt like they were more cardboard than people.

 PLOT
I'm....not sure what the plot was, and I made it halfway through the book. At first, it seemed like it was going to be an exploration of Colton's memory loss and strange abilities. But then the vampires showed up, and I got confused.

 I think the plot is that the "Dark Ones"--evil creatures living in the ruins of downtown LA--are attempting to finish taking over the world and kill the remaining humans and vampires, but I'm not entirely sure. The story spent a lot of time focusing on random little scenes, such as spending time with Eric, Bombshell, not-Vincent, and Colton on patrol. This, in addition to the constantly-changing perspective, muddled the plot and made it hard to figure out what exactly I was supposed to be focusing on.

 WRITING
Now, I do know that English is not Mocikat's first language. I also know, though, that this is not her first book and that she presumably has an editor. These facts put together should mean that the writing is sound, but alas, it is not so.

 Many sentences were short and choppy, and simplistic in structure. Many verbs and modifiers were in the wrong places, or in the wrong forms, and this made it hard to understand what exactly was being said. Also, as noted above, each perspective sounded pretty much identical, leaving only names and pronouns to figure out whose perspective each section was told from.

 I'm sure these grammatical errors were corrected in the final copy of the novel, but they made it very hard for me to read.

 RATING
I have chosen not to give Shadow City a rating, as I did not finish it. If I were to, it would be one star.

 RECOMMENDATION
No. I'm sorry, but I can't recommend this to anyone, considering I had such a hard time bringing myself to read this. I really wanted to like it, but I just...didn't.

 This book was released November 7th, 2019.

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