Never-Contented Things by Sarah Porter – Review

Published: March 19, 2019

Publisher: Tor Teen

Series: Stand alone

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Pages: 368 (Hardcover)

My Rating: DNF

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

Seductive. Cruel. Bored
Be wary of… 

Prince and his fairy courtiers are staggeringly beautiful, unrelentingly cruel, and exhausted by the tedium of the centuries―until they meet foster-siblings Josh and Ksenia. Drawn in by their vivid emotions, undying love for each other, and passion for life, Prince will stop at nothing to possess them.

First seduced and then entrapped by the fairies, Josh and Ksenia learn that the fairies’ otherworldly gifts come at a terrible price―and they must risk everything in order to reclaim their freedom.

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Here’s my first DNF of the year and it sucks because I was really excited to read this book. I usually love books with faeries, but not this time around. As I was reading this I found myself looking at the percentage read and cringing because I had so much left to read and shortly after that I decided it wasn’t worth continuing and here’s why.

The characters felt like the usual edgy teens that often feature in the more urban fantasy leaning faerie stories which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, in the stories faeries go for weirdly beautiful, the talented, the artistic so Ksenia (Kezzer) and Josh fit that perfectly. They’re foster kids and have been with the same family for years, though they themselves aren’t related. They remind me of the alt-emo crowd from high school and I can’t shake the image of Ksenia as the girl version of the guy from A Clockwork Orange. The characters are memorable for sure, but they’re relationship was weird.

As I mentioned, they’re unrelated foster children BUT they’re secretly in love. It was weirdly incestuous despite them not actually being related. Total put-off. I kept thinking maybe it would get better, but it did not. Somehow Jaime and Cersei from GoT was less weird than this – perhaps because of the setting and the precedent among royal families.

Also, this may seem like a small, petty thing, but I HATE THE NICKNAME KEZZER. It’s like nails on a chalkboard and every time I read it I cringed. It’s like the nickname a drug dealer gave themselves to sound tough, but he’s really a skinny, pale dude that really needs to shave off his pathetic excuse for a moustache and get a life.

And lastly, the POV shifted to that of Josh and Kezzer’s friend Lexi. I thought there was hope for the book at that point, but I didn’t like her either. Her characterization felt forced and at that point I decided enough was enough. I have too many books in my TBR that I want to read and there wasn’t a good reason to continue wasting my time with this one. I read 40% of the book, so I definitely gave it a fair chance but it wasn’t meant to be!