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Feast (2011)

by Merrie Destefano(Favorite Author)

3.29 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0061990825 (ISBN13: 9780061990823)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Harper Voyager

series

Harvest of Dreams

review 1: Feast: Harvest of Dreams takes what most consider to be contemporary issues like divorce, depression, parenthood, financial security and career development, then mixes in elements of a darkly beautiful fantasy that will ensnare you from page one. I was surprised at how involved I got in reading this book, at often I thought of the characters after I was finished. The writing style was just so visual and I found it easy to imagine Ticonderoga Falls, almost like the world came alive inside my mind.The Darklings aren't your average friendly forest creatures at all. They are truly the stuff of nightmares, feeding off the dreams of humans with no regard for life at all. To them people are nothing more than prey, something to be hunted. Rather Grimm like, in my opinion, which is... more more like I have grown to envision the fae. All except for Ash. At first I had trouble figuring out the character of Ash. Was he good or bad? Was he watching out for Mac because he cared or did he want to feed off her? I definitely liked reading to find out all his secrets. Mac was also very well written and being a mother myself I found her actions to be easy to understand. I just liked her.The only real nit-pick I have is that each chapter is told in a different character POV which at times can be a bit frustrating because when the chapter is short it disrupts the flow. On the other hand, it was interesting way to learn more about the Darklings. It's just something to be aware of, that's all.
review 2: Note: Free review copy received via NetGalley.Destefano has created some wonderful new mythical creatures and legends with the Darklings in her new novel, Feast. She writes about them with the care and passion of someone who truly loves her creation.However, it feels like she isn't quite ready to let them go. Destefano isn't ready to stop working with this novel yet and it shows. Rather than relaying a cohesive story, Destefano focuses more on relaying each and every plot point, allowing each of her characters a chance to speak. Every few pages we are dropped into a different character's narrative, making for a jarring reading experience. Rather than building a sense of mystery about the Darklings, humanoid creatures that live off of human dreams and nightmares, we are fed bits and pieces of information about them throughout the narrative at such a regular pace that by the end of the story I was less than intrigued and more annoyed that I knew almost too much by the end and not quite enough at the beginning to make this an enjoyable discovery.The "romance" between two of the many main characters felt more or less unnecessary and it might have actually been more interesting just to build Ash as simply a protector of story tellers rather than needing to fall in love with Maggie. Like almost everything else, it just felt tacked on, and part of this is due to the every changing narrative, in addition, there are actually three budding romances that take place in this very short novel and I was really only mildly impressed by one.Destefano does try very hard to capture the magical feeling of creatures that are capable of weaving spells through song and incantation through her use of language. This includes a lot of purple prose and some very creative sentence structures, unfortunately it came off as gimmicky but might have been more effective if she had chosen to use this method only when writing from the point of view of the Darklings and if she had gone all out with it. Lastly, by the end of the book, all of the townspeople all of a sudden seem to know everything about Darklings whereas before they were presented as being blissfully unaware of them (with a few exceptions). There is no explanation for this sudden burst of knowledge, unless they were all playing patsy, in which case there are even more questions to be answered.Overall, this is worth reading a few pages of just to see these new creatures, but the characters and storyline weren't really worth the investment of time. If the author is only willing to invest two pages to a character it is awfully difficult to invest my own time to read about every single viewpoint and keep the facts of the narrative straight at the same time. less

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