Review-The Clockwork Heart

I tried, I really tried. I seldom give up on a book, even a badly written one but I am giving up on this one. All of the problems with the first book are still present and, unfortunately, Schwarz has managed to make Elle and Marsh even more whiny, vapid, and boring.

I never felt any great spark of attraction between these two, it seemed to be a case of the author telling us rather than showing us. Now that they are married it only seems to make this lack more noticeable.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Elle seems to have lost any ability to think intelligently. If you have to dumb your characters down to make your story work then maybe you need a different story. Forget the plot (I have), what stands out is the clumsy, obvious manipulation of details to move the story along. You could figure out what was going to happen by the stupid choices Schwarz chose for her characters.

It was like being at the theatre watching a bad play and there was no backdrop so you were not only watching bad acting and listening to stilted dialogue but you were also forced to watch a bumbling stage crew moving props and sets at the same time.

I stopped at 45% and put the book aside. A week later I came back and cheated-I read the last few pages. Nope. There was nothing there to interest me in going back to read the rest. And the ending was a cliffhanger for the main characters but I couldn’t work up a smidgen of interest in whiny, dim-witted Elle and wooden, passionless Marsh.

I would rather watch paint dry.