Review: The Assassin's Curse

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



The Assassin's Curse had so much potential! Pirates, assassins, curses, magic... it sounded like a fun adventure. I really thought I would love it, but it ended up being just blah. There is little adventure, little depth to both characters and world, and I didn't care about or even like the two characters.

It was disappointing, but it also went quickly. I was really annoyed when I got to the end and it was a cliffhanger. I mean the sort of cliffhanger where everything just ends midstep without any resolution and you have to read the next book whether you want to or not, just to get an ending. This is a duology, but it should have been a single book. I am annoyed, but now I'm reading the sequel... I guess that strategy works for authors.

I don't even feel like writing full paragraphs about the good and the bad, so I will resort to bullet points.

Things I liked:

• The main characters are not amazingly beautiful (but anyone beautiful is automatically untrustworthy, selfish, mean, or actually bad).
• The pirate woman on the ship. She is a very minor character, but I liked her. Hopefully she will be in the second book more.

Things I didn't like:

• The main character talks in slang all the way through. It bothered me and made her seem immature.
• The tone is juvenile, but the heroine cusses (our world style) and is 'experienced' sexually.
• The world-building is shallow, just skimming the surface of everything. Again, it should have been an interesting world but felt cardboardish.
• The main character is not very likable. She panics, she lashes out, she doesn’t think. She runs off when she’s bored or thirsty without regard for danger or the curse. She is supposed to be strong, but she's just reckless and doesn't learn from her mistakes.
• The guy, on the other hand, never listens to her or allows her input on what they should do. So I can see why she went off on her own so much. There is no sense of partnership there.
• The curse. The curse is too confining. It makes action impossible for both characters, often physically incapacitating one of them. The story would be so much more interesting if they weren't forced to sit around and stay safe.

So, apparently there's more that I didn't like than I did. I at least hope the sequel will be an improvement, with more of the action and adventure that this one failed to deliver. I hope, since I am being forced to read it, and since this one did end in a place that made the sequel sound like it could be interesting.



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