Review: Ships! Queens! Torture!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 21, 2012
I've been reading quite a few novellas and novelettes as of late, and I have to say Weighted took the cake. It was ultra-gripping from beginning to end; I couldn't peel my eyes from the page.A girl has been captured by the Queen's men and taken to their ship. The Queen is terribly evil and uses various forms of torture to get information out of her - namely, to betray her people by divulging what her "gift" (superpower) is. She finds an unlikely ally in the princess and must endure all the Queen's torture and try her best to keep her secret. That might be easier if she could only remember what her gift is...The story is 36-ish pages long, so I can't give a (too) lengthy review, but overall, Weighted is a part gorrific (that's gory + terrific, see what I did there?!), part escape thriller that ends with a total cliffhanger. The prequel raises a lot of questions about the girl and her people, the Queen and her purpose and the fate of the princess and the rhyming man, so basically, it accomplishes its goal of introducing this world and making readers (including me!) impatient to get our hands on Book 1 of the series.Highly recommended as long as you can handle a bit of gore including multiple drillings to the head and cutting. There are no graphic descriptions, just small mentions, so it shouldn't be a problem for most people.The only two problems I had reading it:Bendar, the riddling guy is unique but I got kind of annoyed with his rhyme-talk. I never really liked Dr. Suess.Alternating between two different fonts is quite unnecessary. Not at all easy on the eyes. Then again, I'm on a laptop and I have no idea how it would look on a Kindle or a Nook.*I received a complimentary review copy ebook from the author in exchange for an honest review.*