VELVETEEN by Daniel Marks

Velveteen
Daniel Marks

Rating: F
Release Date: 10/09/12
Synopsis:
Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem.

The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.

Bonesaw.

Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days. 

It’ll be brutal... and awesome.

But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.

Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules... or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.

My thoughts on the book:
The cover and synopsis for Velveteen are amazing, so needless to say I had high expectations for this book. Those expectations were crushed within the first few chapters. I kept reading because I knew it had to get better. I'd heard some good things about it, so it couldn't be all bad, right? Wrong! The characters are flat, the plot is ridiculous (and the synopsis is misleading about what the plot actually is), the romance is not believable, and the world-building is terrible. I don't recommend this book.

Velveteen is the flattest narrator I've ever read. She is just boring. There's no depth to her at all. I really didn't like her simply because she bored me to tears. Nick, the love interest, was also boring. No characters felt developed, and none of them had their own voices. Being a big character person, this was a huge turn-off for me. Also, the romance is insta-love. No more needs to be said about that. 

The plot is about the Departurists, not revenge. The Departurists are extreme political activists who apparently are as angry about the lack of world-building as I am. They commit horrendous acts in the name of questioning their afterlife and the idea and existence of purgatory. So that's fine. I normally love a good revolution. I would have loved it a lot more had I known exactly what they were revolting against. Yea, I get the basic premise that I explained above, but I didn't understand purgatory or the ideas being represented in this world. Therefore, I don't know if I agreed with them or not. Whatever. 

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. If you want to try it, check it out from the library before buying.