Okay, admittedly, of all the fairy tales and classic stories being remade over and over in this day and age, Swan Lake isn't usually one of them. We've got Cinderellas and Snow Whites out the whazoo, but not so much Odette or Odile. So, yeah, I was willing to give this a shot. I wanted to see how someone could take that classic tale and modernize it...which I didn't really get because this story is almost nothing like Swan Lake at all. Let's talk plot.
Princess Evelayn of the Light Kingdom is under a lot of strain since their neighbors in the Dark Kingdom started a war ten years ago, killing her father and pulling her mother constantly away. The corrupt Dark King is determined to seize ultimate control over all power in the world and must defeat both Evelayn and her mother in order to do so. Evelayn must master her powers and her ability to govern her kingdom before their foe can strike and destroy the balance that holds their world in place. But she has her work cut out for her and must to deal with forces she's not ready to face if she wants to stop the Dark from consuming the Light entirely.
Yeah, sounds a little generic, doesn't it. Well...it is. The painstakingly obvious "good vs. evil" metaphor smacks you right in the face from the start and doesn't let go. The Dark king is, naturally, a guy who gets instantly angry and kills anyone he wants over the tiniest things and makes you highly question why the heck anyone would follow this loser to begin with. He's clearly nuts and evil just for the sake of being evil. And, of course, everyone in the Light Kingdom is good and hardworking and just and true and her mother is just the loveliest person in the history of lovely people. It's just too obvious. It's too simple! There's no complexity, there's no intrigue, there's no...no freaking anything!
While the book tries to give us political intrigue, it really just comes off as teenage angst and boring romantic subplots. She falls for this guy, Lord Tanvir, and it's nothing but "will-they-won't-they-of-course-they-will-who-do-you-think-you're-kidding" drivel. It's also not very good at build up. For one thing, as I've said before, if you don't tell the audience the actual plan that's going down then it's going to work. To its credit, the book does this...just not very effectively. We don't exactly know Evelayn's plan nor the plan of the Dark prince that we keep cutting back to at random intervals. So you're "intrigue" just turns into vague comments like, "all is going according to plan", "if we can't do this, we can't go through with our plan", "this is vital to the plan", and so on and so forth. They talk about their plans in frustratingly vague detail for two thirds of the book, leaving the audience mostly in the dark and completely lost. That's why you have to throw in a couple of plans that don't work, that's why you build suspense, that's how intrigue works!
Also, as I stated earlier, this has freaking nothing to do with Swan Lake other than the fact that there is a lake in the book and there are swans on it. Yeah, this is not a retelling or reimagining of the story of the famous ballet at all. It sounds like that part is going to take place in the second book of the duology, but...if that's the case, don't advertise this book as something that it's not. In fact, if you hadn't promoted it as a Swan Lake retelling, then you might have actually caught us off guard with your big reveal at the end. We'd have gotten to the end of the book and realized "Oh! I see where they're going with this. I never would have guessed" instead of saying, "Um...this isn't like the original story...at all." But, instead, we're given an incredibly generic good vs. evil story with nothing all that original, nothing surprising or groundbreaking, cliched characters, and boring subplots.
Final Verdict
Yeah, this one was pretty bland. Everything felt phoned in and there wasn't enough originality or character or anything to get the reader invested. It called itself one thing and presented us with something totally out of left field. Still, some might be more forgiving of it than others. It didn't make me mad or anything, there's nothing harmful about it. If you still wanna give it a try, you can do so, just save your cash and check it out at your local library.
Have you read the book? What did you think? Comment below and share your thoughts. Please make sure to Follow Midnight Readings for instant updates. Have a book you'd like me to read or would like to make a recommendation? Contact me on goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/65448711-michelle-beer
Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Powerless-Shelley-Miller/dp/1543482546/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519062043&sr=8-1&keywords=powerless+by+shelley+miller
Xlibris: https://www.xlibris.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001175242
Next Time: One of today's best story tellers recounts tales of old....
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