DNF Book Review - Dead Silent

Dead Silent
Author: Sharon Jones
Series: Poppy Sinclair #2
Genres: Mystery, Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: 6th Febuary 2014
Publishers: Orchard Books
No. Pages: 336
Source: Review Copy - Orchard Books
Rating: 
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When Poppy Sinclair and her boyfriend visit snowy Cambridge, she doesn't expect to discover the body of a student - arms outstretched in the act of smearing bloody angel wings on the chapel's floor. Suddenly, Poppy is faced with the possibility that the one closest to her heart might be the one committing the most malicious of crimes.

Dodging reporters and police, dreading what she might find, Poppy follows the clues left by a murderer bent on revenge.

Long-hidden secrets are chillingly revealed, an avenging angel seeks forgiveness and red-hot vengeance must be quelled in the amazing new Poppy Sinclair thriller.

In truth, I only really had myself to blame with Dead Silent. I had set off on the wrong foot before I'd even downloaded the book, all because I fell for the cover. I thought I'd gotten past this weakness, but once again, the tone, the title, the background and the whole synopsis drew me in and before I knew it, I had the book off of NetGalley, only to find out it was a sequel. Now don't get me wrong, I probably shouldn't have read this, and I almost didn't, but not long after a read of a review saying it was readable as a standalone, so I went for it, and yes, this book started off well; I found the characters a little naive and immature yes, but they're college students, it's understandable, and once the body was found, my interest was peeked, but sustaining that peeking interest was what resulted in my dnf'ing this book; not because it wasn't good, but because I couldn't bring myself to finish it.

Dead Silent started off strong with a nice easy feel that helped me into the tone and feel of the story and characters, especially considering I hadn't read the first and I was impressed by how I was able to slot myself into this world with the characters and relaly relate to them within three or four chapters, and once the murder was revealed, I was a happy lass. I like a good murder you see, CSI's, NCIS's and Castle are my go to programmes for a bit of gore, and it was nice to see that Jones wasn't afraid to put quite an interesting spin of the story, with the touch of bloody angel wings and secret societies, and I even especially liked the creepy aspects; the dark secrets, the cruel parlor tricks and the especially creepy scenes and dreams Poppy had, but that, I'm afraid is where I left this book. I'd made it exactly 53% of the way through and dropped it. Why?

It was, well, boring most of the time. In fact, I made the fewest amount of notes on this book than I ever have on a book, just because I couldn't find anything to say. In the half of this book that I read, the romance was so heavy I was ready to crumble under the amount of constant reference to sex, and look, I'm a nineteen year old teenager, I know my way around the bedroom, but seriously, those scenes were just so cringey and shameful, and I genuinely couldn't take to them as a couple in itself. Maybe this is where my lack of knowledge in the first book comes in, but I just couldn't see a sexual attraction between them at all; it all felt forced and pushed and I couldn't enjoy it. I also became very irritable with the switching of perspectives. I understand that even in the half I read, the different perspectives were relevant to the clues and the mystery, but I'm sure I shouldn't have been bored out of my brain, reading other books ahead of this one or even avoiding this book entirely, because that's what I was doing.

Near the end I was torn on whether to finish this book or not, and I spent around three days telling myself I wanted to know who the murderer was, who was behind the attacks, and even now, I'm still a teeny tad bit interested in who was responsible, but enough to read the last half. Not at the speed it was going at anyway. Had this book been shorter, with more mystery elements than romance and with two much more interesting voices to follow, I may have been swayed, but in the end, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it.