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A review by bmg20
Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Stephanie Hemphill
1.0
A copy of Hideous Love was provided to me by Balzer + Bray/Edelweiss for review purposes.
'November brightens my spirit
as I let go my fears
and agree to travel
to London to be with my Shelley.
I visit Skinner Street
and the Hunts.
Also History of a Six Weeks Tour,
my first book, appears this month,
again with an anonymous author.'
*snore*...
I didn't go into this surprised that this was verse and immediately discount it. I adore novels written in verse (well, as long as they're well done.) When done right, novels written in verse have the ability to evoke such beautiful emotion, flawlessly. Verse is essentially narrative poetry: beautiful words that flow, words that can hold you captive in their power, but words that also tell a tale.
I understand that verse is the next big writing style, but verse writing requires a certain finesse. You're not just telling a tale and you can't take your sentences, chop them up into tiny bits and format them to appear as poetry and call it verse. To me, this is exactly what happened with Hideous Love. The writing was choppy and stilted and didn't allow me to connect with the story. It also lacked any sort of emotion, which is the most vital and important part of a verse novel. There were no beautiful descriptive passages, it was simply a long line of 'this happened, then this happened, then this, and now that.'
Suffice it to say, I was extremely disappointed. I think choosing to write this novel in verse was a huge decision and definitely the wrong one. Unfortunately, I don't recommend this one at all.
'November brightens my spirit
as I let go my fears
and agree to travel
to London to be with my Shelley.
I visit Skinner Street
and the Hunts.
Also History of a Six Weeks Tour,
my first book, appears this month,
again with an anonymous author.'
*snore*...
I didn't go into this surprised that this was verse and immediately discount it. I adore novels written in verse (well, as long as they're well done.) When done right, novels written in verse have the ability to evoke such beautiful emotion, flawlessly. Verse is essentially narrative poetry: beautiful words that flow, words that can hold you captive in their power, but words that also tell a tale.
I understand that verse is the next big writing style, but verse writing requires a certain finesse. You're not just telling a tale and you can't take your sentences, chop them up into tiny bits and format them to appear as poetry and call it verse. To me, this is exactly what happened with Hideous Love. The writing was choppy and stilted and didn't allow me to connect with the story. It also lacked any sort of emotion, which is the most vital and important part of a verse novel. There were no beautiful descriptive passages, it was simply a long line of 'this happened, then this happened, then this, and now that.'
Suffice it to say, I was extremely disappointed. I think choosing to write this novel in verse was a huge decision and definitely the wrong one. Unfortunately, I don't recommend this one at all.