Haven (Kindled #1), by Claire Kent

Haven by Claire Kent

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Let’s get this review started with the best aspect of this novella: It’s short! And that’s a mercy because it tries to put a romance story into a post-apocalyptic world – and neither of these ideas actually works.

The entire story felt forced, probably due to the length of this novella: the story never had a chance to develop and I feel very strongly that romance and apocalypse don’t really fit well together.

Especially not when the author, who “has been writing romance novels since she was twelve years old”, never progressed beyond that age writing-wise: Our heroine, Faith, shows her maturity by gratuitous use of the word “fuck”. All over the place.

I don’t mind vulgarity, but if it’s just introduced for its real or perceived “shock value”, it quickly becomes annoying. Especially if, as is the case here, the writing is on an extremely “plain” level. Simple sentences, driving the mediocre story forward without any linguistic or semantic appeal – there are no redeeming qualities to the writing.

Jackson, Faith’s love interest, is a stereotypical grumpy, brooding young man without any other discernible character traits. He’s basically just around to have sex with Faith. The resulting sex scenes are supposed to be steamy, but feel rather mechanical and sterile. There’s lust but no passion. Nevertheless, after some sex and one kiss, they’re in a relationship. Just like that. Oops.

The apocalyptic parts are also rather bland. We’re just being told about the death of billions and how devastated Earth now is but there’s nothing to show for it. I know teenagers who have absorbed lots of “Walking Dead”, who, as a result, can evoke images of a devastated world more convincingly.

When I started writing this review, I was going to award three stars. Two paragraphs earlier, I was down to two stars, and now this turd actually gets the one star out of five it deserves.


Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam



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