Review: Intertwined

Intertwined by Gena Showalter (1/5)

I really wanted to enjoy this book based solely on the premise, which is really interesting, but I struggled so hard to get through it. I considered stopping halfway through the book but a mild curiosity kept me going. The plot is probably the best part of it, and even that was kind of… meh.

I couldn’t bring myself to really care about any of the characters. There was so little emotion in this book. All of the relationships (romantic and platonic) felt too instant and dramatized, with zero chemistry even as the book progressed.

I’m also very confused by Aden’s characterization. He doesn’t seem like an inherently violent person, but he still feels this need to punch people when they threaten them, which seems odd to me. Even for a teenage boy. He goes straight from “I really don’t want to fight anyone” right to “this person is going to think I’m a wuss so I guess I’ll beat him half to death.” I feel like sometimes he does things to create drama/further the plot rather than out of any adherence to who he is as a character.

He’s also kind of an idiot. I get it that this is YA and I’m used to the main characters making rash decisions or processing things a bit slow. But he’s very slow. He even calls himself out on it at least once. “How had he not reasoned it out?” More importantly, how did the four other people in his head not figure it out? Especially the one who can raise the dead. It’s one thing to put clues together and figure it out before the characters, but when there’s so many clues and you’re bored because you’ve been waiting too long for the characters to put it together…. That’s when it gets irritating.

I want my books to make me laugh, cry, maybe get a little angry. I unfortunately spent this book swinging between bored and annoyed.

For an in-depth review of my thoughts on this book, check out my analysis on Intertwined.