Hello friends, I’m here with a review of Face of Evil by George Morris De’Ath, this was an ARC that I very kindly received from NetGalley and Aria & Aries – so thank you to them!
Overall rating – 2 out of 5 stars.
From the start I thought Lydia was rude, insensitive and an awful character… I didn’t warm to her at all, she was very up herself and I found her really hard to like. I really struggled with how she constantly thought she was better than everyone else, it made her very irritating as a character.
I’m not sure if the author has tried to deliberately make Lydia as unlikeable as possible, if that’s the case then they’ve certainly achieved their aim!
Because the book focused on Lydia I found it very hard to enjoy. I also feel like we didn’t get a fair share of the other characters, they were very 2D and flat and as such were hard to form an opinion on.
I felt very indifferent to the book on the whole, it didn’t exactly fill me with enjoyment to read it but I didn’t hate it.
It wasn’t the most original plot, it felt like a cheaper version of Silence of the Lambs and didn’t really offer anything new that I hadn’t already read. There were no real shock factors.
I also felt the book alluded to a lot of backstory that was never fully expanded upon and I feel would have made Lydia more likeable and generally added more the story.
There were sections of this book that I enjoyed, namely the interactions between Lydia and the killer she was interviewing, they were written really well and were a breath of fresh air through this book.
However, the remainder of the book just didn’t hit the spot for me.
I will admit I was shocked by the turn of events within this book, but, once it started to unfold I very quickly guessed where it was headed and what was going on. I don’t want to give too much away but I pretty much guessed what was happening/had happened previously…
The final ending of the book just was not it. It added absolutely nothing to the story, and actually went against the image of Lydia that had been portrayed to us throughout the book.
Sadly, this book just was not good, in my opinion. As we focused a lot on Lydia it was hard to enjoy due to the nature of her character, and with the boring and predictable story I just didn’t enjoy it.
Please let me know if you’ve read this book and what you thought!
Until next time, Em xxx
What Em's Reading 