Review: The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter

By On December 18, 2008 · 4 Comments

This review’s going to be short and sweet… er, or not so sweet. I’d heard good things about Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld series, so I was looking forward to The Darkest Night. I’ve been digging books with demons lately, and I was in the mood for a paranormal alpha male.

And then I read the book. Or tried to, anyway.

I don’t like writing negative reviews, really. I want to try to find something to like about a book, because otherwise I just wasted hours of my life reading something that I hated.

Well… I’m having trouble finding anything to like about this book. The concept of the cursed warriors is interesting, but I absolutely, positively do not give a damn about a single character in this book. Maddox, the hero, and his band of cursed, demon-possessed buddies are a bunch of assholes who apparently either fight or punch holes in the wall every ten minutes. Ashlyn, the heroine, is ridiculously innocent considering that she’s a grown-ass woman (the part about only having seen a penis on websites she wasn’t supposed to visit made me laugh out loud), and the supporting cast of thousands was a complete mess. One of the other asshole warriors kidnapped four women to keep from having to kill them, and THOSE women annoyed me, too.

I finally gave up the book when, over halfway through the book, Showalter suddenly introduces about five new characters. More demon-possessed asshole warriors. Whee.

I could never buy into the characters’ motivations–the asshole warriors didn’t seem to have any, except to survive and still be assholes. The romance between Ashlyn and Maddox was badly underdeveloped; I think it was supposed to be a destiny-soulmates type thing, which is probably my least favorite romance trope EVER (actually, least favorite is not strong enough. I hate that trope with the fire of a thousand supernovae.). The plot was murky at best. And after reading more than half of the book, I realized that I absolutely did not care what happened to any of the characters. Not one iota of give-a-damn.

So I gave up.

The Fangirl’s Review: F

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About The Author

TDF Pamela

The Discriminating Fangirl, who is more likely to answer to Pamela if you shout it at her, is the proud owner of an MA in English, focusing on children's/young adult literature and popular culture. She's now not using that degree to work as a project manager for a mobile app company. She reads voraciously, loves geeky movies and tv shows, reads comic books as long as she's not pissed off at Marvel, and when she's procrastinating, she enjoys playing video games. She can be contacted at t.d.fangirl @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter @tdfangirl.

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  • sandchigger

    Lords of the Underworld? Any series named after Timmy’s band from Southpark automatically gets points in my book.

  • new_user

    Hey, followed your review link from GR. And I didn’t care for The Darkest Night either (despite how very much I wanted to; I really like to find an author I can follow and the reviews were rave and the premise was interesting and demonish). However, all that wishing could not make up for the lack of character dev in this book. I didn’t mind the violence of the “Lords” (mostly against each other), but they had no personalities. At least the one that concerns us (Maddox) didn’t. Nothing about his history, interests, etc., etc., just one footnote at one point that he used to like woodcarving. I don’t even know much about the Lords jobs (immortal guards for Zeus?) before The Event. And the author keeps mentioning his demon is terrible, just terrible, but as someone else said, it was telling, not showing. I wasn’t convinced. Despite all Maddox’s nonsense and supposed rage, he was still the corniest freaking cheeseball with the heroine (and not very bright either). Just kept seeing, “Mmm. Me like Jane. Must have.” And why do they like each other? I didn’t like that either. She seemed to be drawn to him largely because he got rid of the voices in her head. Well, gee, I would like him too. What the sheezy? So yeah, I agree, I don’t like that trope either. It’s an easy way out for an author so she doesn’t have to build a real relationship. And I agree, no motivations for anything… They were very shallow chars.

  • http://racyromancereviews.com Jessica

    They were assholes weren’t they? I was struggling to find the right word, but you’ve cut to the chase!

  • http://blog.phoenixfyre.net The Discriminating Fangirl

    Hi, new_user! The lack of character development was a HUGE problem. The premise was cool, but I feel like it could have been fleshed out a lot more. For instance, why was the Pandora myth changed? I can buy that kind of shift, but I need a reason for it. Just telling me that she was a warrior isn’t enough; I want to know why the story that was passed down is that she was overly curious.

    Hi, Jessica! I tried and tried to find a nicer way to say it, but I just couldn’t. The guys are a bunch of assholes, and I really don’t want to read any more about them. Sheesh, I need to have at least one reason to sympathize with them.

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