Review: Red by Alyxandra Harvey

Title: Red

Author: Alyxandra Harvey

Series: N/A

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Publication date: March 10th 2015

Format: Kindle | 198 pages

Genre: YA | Paranormal

Goodreads

Bad girls burn hot…

 

Red is the color of Kia Alcott's hair.
It's her temper, which blazes hot and always gets Kia into way too much trouble.
And it's the color of fire. Fires that Kia can start…just by thinking about them.

 

When her latest “episode” gets her kicked out of school, Kia is shipped off to her grandmother, who works for the wealthy Blackwoods. It's an estate shrouded in secrets, surrounded by rules, and presided over by a family that is far from normal…including the gorgeous and insolent Ethan Blackwood.

 

Ethan knows far more about the dangers of the forest surrounding the estate than Kia can ever imagine. For this forest has teeth, and Ethan is charged with protecting the outside world from its vicious mysteries.

 

But inside, even the most vibrant shade of red doesn't stand a chance against the dark secrets of the Blackwood family…

My thoughts:

This was one of those reads that were split right down the middle into one half that I couldn't stand and the other, enjoyable. For this kind of read, I never know what to say in a review and how to rate the book. I feel like I'm forced to decide which half of the read to represent the whole book. I suppose it depends on how enjoyable I found the one half to be. But it really does disappoint me when this happens - it just shows how much potential the book had.

To put it simply, I got bored. The first half of the book really dragged for me. I found myself wandering off just to distract myself and the number of times my thoughts started to wander was astonishing. Thinking back I don't know how I carried on reading. 

Nothing seemed to grab my attention. The characters fell really flat and that, in turn, just made me not care about anything that went on. Not any secrets that were revealed, character deaths or supposedly exciting things of the sort that usually has a reader on the edge of their seat.

In the second half however, things started to pick up. There was a whole lot more action happening and the characters had actually started to open up a bit, and that made me take a little bit more notice.

This is where things get really frustrating for me. Did I actually enjoy it that much, or was it in comparison to the first half of the story I found it a breath of fresh air? Thinking back, i couldn't wait for it to be over. So I guess that answers that question.

My rating: 4/10

Alyxandra Harvey:

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