Elin Su

The characters, plot, and writing are awful. The entire story can basically be told in 3 minutes, you wouldn’t miss anything, and you would likely be feeling bored by the 30 second mark by how cliche the entire story is. The author spends too much time rambling on and on about setting details (Ohh, no! The wind is “screeching” and there are animals in the dark! I wonder what this foreshadows—and the author continues describing different animals scurrying around at night for an entire paragraph on every three pages, and silly me thought that it would actually contribute to some unknown aspect of the story so I had to search up what fighting chickens symbolize every few minutes and all of that nonsense.) Not to mention his use of vocabulary is horrible, as he uses weird, vague terminology every once in a while in the most random places with nearly no actual hints to help the reader understand the definition. Like here, “‘I do not want to bring danger to you,’ Kino said. ‘I know I am like a leprosy’” (65). Like, uhm…why does he talk like that, and seriously, is Kino using metaphors to compare himself to a rare, chronic disease suitable here? Where did he even get this knowledge, though? Spoiler: we’re never going to find out. This happens throughout the entire story and has me cringing every time, so that’s something, I guess. As inferred above, I hate the characters as they are so unrealistic you literally cannot understand them even when the author broadcasts their thoughts. Their actions are unpredictable and the most unreasonable, make no sense with the content provided, and further deepen my confusion and annoyance toward them. Literally all figurative language your teachers make you observe are stated but never used later. I usually don’t rate books below two stars, but I detest this book, how I had to spend ten minutes analyzing every page to prepare myself for quizzes and my English grade drop. I hope you survive this semester if your teachers force you to read this monstrosity.