REVIEW: Strange Fates by Marlene Perez

Strange Fates by Marlene Perez
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book because of the premise, revenge. I love me some revenge stories, but unfortunately this one, Strange Fates, book 1 of the Nyx Fortuna series, was blah. It was not bad, but it was not really good, it was somewhere in between, and thus the blah.

+ Nyx, the hero
The story was told in exclusive first person POV from his side. I liked his voice. I liked his easy-going personality. I liked his resilience. What I did not like were the inconsistencies in his character development. He’s supposed to be hundreds of years old, but he acted as how he appeared to be, which is in his 20s. Where is the cynicism, the wisdom, the detachment from humans?

He’s supposed to be a lone wolf, always on his guard because his aunts are actively trying to kill him. Yet, in the first scene he got stabbed, and later throughout the book it turned to be one out of several scenes where he got ambushed. Fuck the aunts because Nyx got in so much trouble that if it wasn’t for his “curse of immortality” he’d be dead already.

His aunt doesn’t want just Nyx dead, they also want anyone who Nyx loved dead too. Thus Nyx said he is antisocial for a very good reason, yet what I saw is that he made friends easily and relatively quickly. He even managed to make friends out of initially hostile characters. Where is the antisocial attitude he said he’s had for hundreds of years?

Hell, there was even an instant love. Nyx said he doesn’t believe in instant love, just instant lust, but that belief was not consistent with how he acted towards Elizabeth. Although what occurred at the end explained some of the infatuation, it didn’t explain all of it and he really did love her. His love for her is what set up the next book in the series.

+ Elizabeth, the love interest
I liked her at first because she kicked her date in the groin because her date refuse to accept no to sexual advances for an answer. I thought, “This is not a damsel in distress. Thank goodness.” That judgement was premature, because it turned she was a damsel in distress in every way. Urban Fantasy and their fucking damsels in distress, ugh. I did not care for Elizabeth. She did earn a handful of my sympathy, but that was it. The romance between her and Nyx was bland and slightly annoying. After discovering her damsel in distress status, I wanted a different love interest for Nick.

+ the pace
In spite of the douchebag-just-stabbed-Nyx beginning, the pace was slow-going afterward for 20% of the book. Only then was there another action scene, and then it was back to being slow-going. Action scenes occurred far apart in the plot. The plot took its sweet time dishing out the action scenes.

+ the plot
There were many twists but they didn’t have the emotional impact that is typical of twists. I feel these twists were more zigzags than twists. The plot was supposed to be about revenge, but most of it had to do with Nyx white-knighting Elizabeth in his “I’m taking my sweet time” pace. If you expect to get a revenge story — desist. Not to say I was bored, but I was not thrilled either.

In Conclusion

I rate Strange Fates 2-stars for it was okay. It was not bad, but nothing really amazed me and I didn’t like how much of the book was so focused on the damsel in distress.

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