Review: Disjointed
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 5, 2014
I found the plot and the dialogue to pretty disjointed at times. The information being presented didn't always connect.Characters: Miniature SpoilersErrol: He was fine, except for the never-explained reason why he felt like he couldn't stay in Scotland. I felt like that was a complete curveball that was used solely as a plot device for the final conflict between Eve and him.Eve: I liked her character a lot except when she thought about her relationship with Errol, and then she became repetitive, unreasonable, and pretty stupid. She just kept thinking about the same reasons why she couldn't marry him, and never really brought any new problems that would make good reasons. She kept citing the fact that he said "he'd make a terrible husband", but to be fair he thought Grace was trying to manipulate him into marriage. It was incredibly annoying to be in Eve's head; it was so much better when I didn't have to hear her lament the same things over and over again. Most of the time she talked about her relationship with the earl, she was incredibly unreasonable, but her personality when they weren't talking about that was great. I wish they hadn't of spent so much time talking about them because it would have made for a much more fun book.Grace:I don't even know where to begin. I felt like the entire book Scott was trying to play off Grace as a spoiled and naive girl when really she was a psychopath. The blase attitude she had when confronted with her lies was pretty off-putting and a little disgusting. I did not get naive, young girl from her actions and words no matter how much the other characters talked about her youthful idiocy. She was a complete loony toon for the first part of the book and then made the switch to almost acceptable and caring sister. I could not get behind it; I didn't see any development or motivation that would warrant the change. I feel like Scott was trying to make her a light villain with redeemable qualities, but it was too much of a shift in behavior. I had no desire to read about her or her shenanigans.Plot: Spoilers AheadThe plot was a little too ridiculous for my taste. The entire Gretna Green fiasco was way too contrived; it was an insanely loose way to get all of the characters up to the Island of Mull. As I was reading it, I kept thinking to myself "Nah, there's no way this could be that stupid." But it was. A character who we meet for pretty much a page decides to gain revenge on a pretty weak slight by kidnapping a woman he's never met before in order to "compromise" her so it shames the earl, but then decides he's going to marry her and tries to rape her? I mean I can't even believe I just wrote that.I agree with another review that there were a lot of plot points that were probably setting up sequels, but only served to bog down this book.I also found Scott's description of the earl's family in the beginning of the book to be incomprehensible. It was only after we got to Mull that I was able to figure out who was who. It was never clear that the earl had two wives and a mistress, and the siblings' relationships to each other were so poorly explained.