Early Review: Moonglow by Michael Griffo
Moonglow by Michael Griffo
The Darkborn Legacy #1
Something strange is going on with Dominy Robineau. All her friends in Weeping Water, Nebraska, have noticed—and it’s way beyond teenage blues. As weeks pass, Dom grows consumed by anger, aggression, and violence, and she seems powerless to stop it. Then she turns sixteen, and things get really dangerous.
When her best friend is murdered, Dominy’s father is compelled to reveal the truth behind the darkness that threatens to both overtake and empower her. Her boyfriend, Caleb, swears they’ll find a way to change her destiny. But others are hiding secrets too, and gifts that are far more terrifying than hers. And even as she struggles to control her new abilities, Dom must contend with an enemy who wants her to use the beast within to destroy all those she loves, before she destroys herself…
Dominy's been going through some very unsettling changes lately. She's quick to anger and violence has become like a second nature and it's only getting worse. Then on the night she turn sixteen the unspeakable happens and her life is forever changed and her father finally reveals the truth behind what has been happening to her. The answer is more shocking and unbelievable than she ever could have imagined. Suddenly life becomes centered around the mystical and everything holds more questions than answers. With limited time, Dominy must learn to control herself before her darkside consumes her and everyone around her.
While the characters in MOONGLOW weren't completely flat and two dimensional, I can't really say that they were three dimensional either. I mean there was romance, but I definitely didn't feel anything about it as it was just kind of laid out there. Honestly, the only character who had any depth at all was Dominy's best friend, Jess, and she gets killed off in the very beginning. In fact the entire time I was reading this book, I couldn't really figure out the characters' motivations for anything they were doing. So, I was rather blaze about their whole plight. At least that was something happened later in the book that absolutely appalled me to the point where I literally disgusted with Dominy. She made an absolutely inexcusably selfish decision that came back to bite her in the butt anyway. To be honest I felt that she deserved the negative turn of events, and honestly when you start wishing ill towards the main characters, it really shows the lack of connection.
Considering the length of this book I really very surprised that things weren't developed more than they were. In fact more time was spent on lengthy descriptions rather than really developing the plot or characters. The "big bad" was one of those in your face evils, yet the reasoning behind that evil was completely unsatisfying. In fact the whole circumstances surrounding the issues with Dominy really felt like they were just slapped together without any real cement to bind it all together. For a book to be really enjoyable for me, it has to have both strong characters and a well developed mythology/plot. Unfortunately MOONGLOW fell short in both of those categories.
As I look back over this review, I realize that I didn't really have anything positive to say about the story. It wasn't that MOONGLOW was a terrible book, it just had a really hard time keeping my attention due to the issues I talked about above. In fact, because of those problems, I found myself skimming more often than not as I tried to find anything that would grab my attention. But unfortunately those moments were far and few between. All in all MOONGLOW was a rather mediocre read for me as there just wasn't anything memorable about it. I highly doubt I'll be continuing on with this series. Perhaps this book will appeal more to others, but for me it's a pass.
(Received a copy from the publisher)
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