Book Review: Thumos Rising (Σ, #1) by Demitrios Lopez

Review also available on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6379404624?book_show_action=false


Disclaimer: this is a review in progress (edit: this is now a DNF review) and is based on an eARC provided by NetGalley. I am still very early in the book, but even now I can't honestly say that I think this book can get better than one star from me. And when I say early, I mean my Kindle app says I'm 2% through. This book needs at *least* a full editing pass, and a couple rounds of line edits besides. Some of the missing spaces may be due to it being a PDF and not an EPUB, but I can only review the book I got, and there were enough missing spaces that I stopped marking them. The book is poorly formatted, scene breaks are not clear, and so much has already happened that I can't keep track of it and frankly just don't care. It's happening too fast and with no emotional context and even when the character is supposed to be feeling tortured and trapped, I feel nothing. I wanted this book to be good. It's not. I'm going to keep reading at least for now, because I still want this book to be good. But it's not looking like it will be.

ETA: I can't do it. I have to DNF this book at only 2% in. It feels unfair, but I cannot stop physically cringing at the writing. The prose is bad. The world building is bad. The info dumps are happening so fast that I didn't even register they were info dumps at first because I was too distracted by how badly written they were. I cannot in good conscience suggest anyone read this, ever. Including me. I can't read it myself. The writing is so painfully bad that the ideas and plot don't matter. A good book, even a mediocre book, can pull you into the page. Even a good essay can pull you in. This is just a jumble of words on a page trying to communicate something and failing.

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