Why I DNF(d) Moon Chosen by P.C. Cast
What: Moon Chosen (Tales of a New World #1) by P.C. Cast
Who: Pan Australia
When: October 25th 2016
How: A copy of this novel was provided by Pan Macmillan Australia for review.
Mari is an Earth Walker, heir to the unique healing powers of her Clan; but she has cast her duties aside, until she is chosen by a special animal ally, altering her destiny forever. When a deadly attack tears her world apart, Mari reveals the strength of her powers and the forbidden secret of her dual nature as she embarks on a mission to save her people. It is not until Nik, the son of the leader from a rival, dominating clan strays across her path, that Mari experiences something she has never felt before…
Now, darkness is coming, and with it, a force, more terrible and destructive than the world has ever seen, leaving Mari to cast the shadows from the earth. By forming a tumultuous alliance with Nik, she must make herself ready. Ready to save her people. Ready to save herself and Nik. Ready to embrace her true destiny…and obliterate the forces that threaten to destroy them all.
why i did not finish moon chosen
1) Animal cruelty.
One of the reasons why I started putting trigger warnings on all of my reviews is because I cannot stand it when I read about animal cruelty. It makes me feel horrible and disgusting. So the fact that Moon Chosen had such graphic and repetitive animal cruelty was abhorrent to me, and I was quite frankly horrified by it. I don’t go into a YA fantasy expecting to read the foul things that I read in Moon Chosen.
2) It was boring as hell.
If the book had been cut down by 50% in terms of length it might have actually been an interesting book. But in the 61% of Moon Chosen that I did read about two actual noteworthy plot things happened.
3) There was no world building.
For the first book in a series called Tales of a New World you would expect quite an interesting story of what this new world is like, and why there is a new world at all. But nope. All I got was a half assed explanation about technology being busted and something about the sun, and oh look now there’s magic and people skin other people alive and then eat them.
4) The characters were not worthy of investment.
If I at least cared about one of the characters then maybe pushing forward might have been worth it. Or even the 61% might have been worth it. But I only cared about the dogs in this book, and after reading about one being drowned and one being tortured I’d had enough.
5) The killing off of a queer character.
In the 61% of the book I read, there were three queer characters. One was a guy with a boyfriend, and the other two were girls in a relationship. The sexualities of these characters was a complete non-issue, which I appreciated. Up until the point one of the girls was killed off. Does the author not know that queer girls are constantly killed off? That they never have a happily ever after? That queer girls are used as tear inducing fodder for allocishet people’s stories? If she does, I am disappointed. If she doesn’t, then she should have looked into it before killing off one of her only two queer girl characters.
~
In all honesty, I cannot recommend Moon Chosen. There was not one aspect of this book that I could say is worth wading through the rest of the awful crap it is filled with.
© 2016, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.
trigger warnings: multiple murders, death of a parent (murder and head trauma), animal cruelty (graphic torture and murder) – please keep in mind that as i did not finish this book, i don’t have a comprehensive list of trigger warnings
Ugh ugh ugh. I cannot stand when queer girls are killed off in fiction (er… as you may or may not have guessed by the fact that I dedicated a poem to the issue in Heaven or This), and to be quite honest, that is an immediate DNF-inducer for me. I’m so sorry you didn’t enjoy this book, Chiara – I don’t think it would have been for me, either. Let us hope your next read is far, far better. <3
(P.S. Hm, now I can't stop thinking about it, so – certainly just a suggestion and no pressure at all if the idea doesn't speak to you, but I would love to read a post and hear about what your instant DNF-inducing aspects are in books. Something to think about?)
Right? That was actually when I decided to DNF the book for good (after skimming the chapter afterwards and seeing even more animal cruelty). Me, too. I thought that it would be so different to what it actually was. Thank you, lovely <3
Ohhh, I really like that idea! I think it shall be my next discussion, actually :D
Y’ouuuch. This sounds quite bad! You know I was hoping for a better book than her other series with vampires, and that series was baaaad. I’ll probably push this book down my TBR for now… thanks!
It definitely wasn’t a book for me, that’s for sure! I really wanted to like it, but there were just too many things I couldn’t get past. No problem, Jordon :)
Yeah, it’s not usually a good idea to kill the minority characters, unless a lot of others die too, but definitely not a queer girl because they often get killed off, like you said. It’s not cool.
Sorry this didn’t work – and on many levels! Not for me.
-Lauren
Right? I really liked how the two girls were in a happy, healthy relationship, and then that all went down the drain when one of them was killed off. It was that which finally made me DNF the book.
Me, too. On to better books, I hope!
Yeah, I wasn’t interested in this book to begin with but the animal cruelty and everything is just too much. Thanks for the warning Chiara!
I was pretty keen for it, but ultimately it was just a book I could not will myself to finish :/ No problem!
Okay, so the synopsis didn’t catch my attention at all. It just seems too convoluted? I’m kind of wary of P.C. Cast after the House of Night series. I didn’t even finish THAT mess. It was way too much drama for me to be invested.
The fact that there was hardly any world-building in a fantasy novel is a crime.
I liked the idea of animals playing such a big role, but you know how that turned out :/ Oh, House of Night. I was obsessed with it for the first four books, and then I just lost interest, unfortunately.
Totally. I wasn’t impressed by the world building at all.
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