Book: High Voltage (Fever, #10) by Karen Marie Moning
High Voltage Karen Marie Moning PDF
Before I start my review I gotta write a disclaimer so y'all know where I am coming from that I am like an OG hardcore Dani fangirl from way back! I ain't just some loser hater who is shitting on this book needlessly. Dani is literally my fave heroine of all time! I will always love Dani, that brilliant girl imprinted on my heart way back in iced.
I have got hardcore emotio n al investment in Dani's story yo so this review is about to be like 10 pages! Ryodan and Dani were literally my OTP, my fave couple of all time! I loved these two characters with all my heart and soul! Like soooo much, and I went in expecting, as well as wanting to love High Voltage SOOOOOO BAD. Disappointed doesn't even begin to cover what I am feeling right now! I honestly feel LOST.
This is real-time footage of me after reading this book:
It hurts my soul to have to give this book a mediocre rating but it is what it is, I'd be lying if I said it was an amazing book. This book is more like 2 stars but cause of my impartial hardcore dani investment I gave it 3 stars cause i literally can't stand giving her book a negative rating lol.
Ok now that that's out of the way here comes the actual review:
Reading this book was like watching a car crash happen before my eyes.
I thought the power of my positive thoughts would eventually make the book good but alas that did not happen. The book literally read like weird fanfiction. KMM's usually elegant and graceful writing style and fantastic characterization were completely missing from this book.
For one the book felt filled to the brim with tacky pop culture references and songs, like quick someone take away kmm's Spotify she's gone wild lmao. I personally don't mind her chapter title song playlist thing since it usually, in my opinion, enhances her books but this book I felt like she went way to over the top with how much pop culture homegurl was tryna fit into the pages.
There was also a lot of telling but no showing in this book. It was filled to the brim with lengthy monologues about how amazing, sexy and brilliant every single character was with no real proof. At one point during the book, I started wondering whether Kmm had actually even written this book or whether she got kidnapped by an alien or some shit. How can the same person who wrote Iced have written this book?
Everything and I MEAN EVERYTHING in this book felt off! Like someone had literally stolen the souls of the characters and was forcing them to perform a spiritless play with their bodies as puppets or something.
Dani:
Soooo Dani's pov started out ok, i enjoyed reading about her being the protector of Dublin her ventures protecting children and her collecting 'birds,' all reinforced how much I love how good a person Dani is. She truly deserves the title of superhero more than anyone else in this series.
But I swear halfway thru kmm forgot which pov she was supposed to be writing in or something cause instead of Dani her POV started sounding like Mac! I literally feel like entire quotes from mac's pov were copy and pasted into Dani's pov. It was soooo weird did kmm forget how to write Dani or something so she just scapegoated back to what she knows how to write?
Dani who used to show her personality and character most through her badass actions suddenly became this weird rambly version of MacBook who spent most of her time doing her laundry and talking about furniture?
One of my biggest criticisms other than her pov sounding nearly identical to MacBook's pov at times is that Dani was supposed to have an EPIC storyline but the plot of this book was so nonexistent we literally got a 1-page villain lmao. There was no real tension! I wanted my girl to have more than this rudimentary cardboard cutout storyline to herself.
My fav Dani scenes might have been the bit about her mother. Those chapters seemed to me the only chapters that were totally in character. I will admit this part made me cry. The scene regarding Dancer and his
King Ryodan: the lord & liege:
Sadly the most neutered character in this entire book was my baby Ryodan.
I feel like I was witnessing some kind of weird character assassination. I know that characters change and go thru character arcs so obviously Ryodan is not going to be the same man he was in iced. But like he literally doesn't even slightly resemble his past self.
He is like a sad angsty teenage lover boi shadow of his former self lol. He literally jams out to miley cyrus's wrecking ball on the low (view spoiler)and beyond that he spends the book in a constant state of lover boi angst.
Where is the cool, cunning and calculating man that used to show his complex personality through his badass actions? #notmyryo #saveryodan2018
Ryodani:
Look I knew going in that kmm said this book would be along the lines of a romance and I am someone who personally likes romance so I was still excited but it wasn't even a good romance! I am the ultimate ryodani shipper but I gotta say the romance was really meh. It was doing nothing for me.
Like where was the spark? the god damn magic? the electric current that used to permeate between ryodani in the other books? The dynamic, sassy, funny and intense bond these two shared felt missing. That scene in Feverborn where Ryodan licks Dani's back singlehandedly delivered more sexual tension than all the sex scenes combined in this book. When I first read through that scene in Feverborn I got fangirl chills down my pervy spine, none of the ryodani scenes in High Voltage even came close to the same romantic payoff!
I think the reason why the romance fell flat for me was cause none of the characters even seemed real so none of the romance, as a result, felt real to me. I can't believe that the same woman who wrote Mac and Barrons amazing slow burn in the first 5 books wrote the disjointed romantic arc of this book.
How did they jump from maybe we both lowkey want to fuck to I LOVE U 4EVA MY SWEET PRINCE so quick lmao? I was so shook! Where was the relationship development? One minute they just wanted to fuck next minute they r in love? da fuq?
I honestly feel like dani's relationship with dancer was less juvenile than what happened in HV between her and ryodan. Every time ryodan called dani babe a part of my soul died it was so cringy omg. Also what the fuck was up with his weird new nickname for her? Him calling Dani 'Stardust' was supposed to be seen as romantic but just felt straight up cheesy and randomly tacked on to me. Like I dunno if Ryodan's had many long-term partners or what but omg he was more like a weird teenage lover boi than the actual weird teenage loverboi of the series (i love u dancer no offense lmao)
The ending:
The ending was the only part I really liked of the book. Seeing Dani have her happy ending did warm my heart if nothing else. :')
Overall:
I literally started thinking I was the problem not the book like maybe its just my problem that my expectations were too litty and not the books for being kinda shitty. My girl really deserved better than this! Like i'm glad Dani ended up with a happy ending but like my happiness for my baby getting a good HEA was really ruined by the lackluster execution of the entire book.
I'm hoping that next book kmm can take some of this criticism on board. Maybe the next book she'll stroke back the flames in my ryodani loins, who knows? Anyway hopefully, upon re-reading this book a second time I'll like it better! And before any of kmm's fangirls come for me just know that i'm one of you. I just gotta be honest about my feelings yo!
High Voltage Karen Marie Moning PDF
Source: https://medium.com/@latisharoth535/book-high-voltage-fever-10-by-karen-marie-moning-f9218070632c
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