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alobearA Holy Maiden's Guide to Getting Kidnapped by Katy Nyquist follows Ysabel, a holy maiden with a healing gift that costs her a day of her life every time she uses it – she’s enslaved to a corrupt church until a dark lord comes on the scene and disrupts everything, including the state of Ysabel’s heart.
I went in a bit apprehensive – I thought the tone and humour level might not appeal to me – and it was a bit hit and miss.
This wasn’t helped by the audiobook narrator, who over-dramatised every aspect, including the irreverent tone – though the over-emphasis was lessened by speeding up the narration (which broke my New Year’s resolution, but not really because I did it to improve the listening experience rather than just to get through the book quicker.
The biggest problem was that the flippant tone diminished the depth of emotion for me, which meant the relationships didn’t ring true – it also didn’t feel to me as if the blind devotion of Ysabel’s followers was earned because we didn’t see how their relationships were developed – and this was the same for the romance, which felt like it got very intense far more quickly than was credible.
The stakes and emotion really ramped up towards the end and I got a lot more invested, but it did meant it felt very different in tone to the rest of the book.
Overall, I would say it’s a good book – well written and effective at what it’s trying to do – just not really for me.
I went in a bit apprehensive – I thought the tone and humour level might not appeal to me – and it was a bit hit and miss.
This wasn’t helped by the audiobook narrator, who over-dramatised every aspect, including the irreverent tone – though the over-emphasis was lessened by speeding up the narration (which broke my New Year’s resolution, but not really because I did it to improve the listening experience rather than just to get through the book quicker.
The biggest problem was that the flippant tone diminished the depth of emotion for me, which meant the relationships didn’t ring true – it also didn’t feel to me as if the blind devotion of Ysabel’s followers was earned because we didn’t see how their relationships were developed – and this was the same for the romance, which felt like it got very intense far more quickly than was credible.
The stakes and emotion really ramped up towards the end and I got a lot more invested, but it did meant it felt very different in tone to the rest of the book.
Overall, I would say it’s a good book – well written and effective at what it’s trying to do – just not really for me.
