A while ago I read a book from Netgalley called The White City by Karolina Ramqvist. It’s about a young mother who has been abandoned by her high rolling boyfriend, and is about to lose everything when the courts repossess her house. The girl, Karin, pulls some strings and risks everything to get what she feels she deserves (a fat wad of cash). And then the story just ends. Like it just stops. It gets you really invested (I hated the first few pages, by page 25 I was HOOKED) and then it just ends on page 176. I was so fucking mad – she took the beginning of a really, REALLY good story, beautifully written and dark and energetic and dramatic and emotional, and she just cut it into a fucking novella.
You’d think after that experience, I’d check how long books are before reading them. It’s the problem with digital readers (I’m on an old Acer Iconia while my Microsoft Pro is getting fixed) – you can’t tell how hefty a book is. I downloaded The Girl ITC and got started and it was great. Fantastic hook, non-intrusive world building, believable actions by characters, high stakes, a bomb and then……………………..fucking NOTHING. That’s the end. She’s not even the girl in the city anymore because there is no city.
Urgh.
I get that this was written as a short spin off from another book (Pennsylvania by Michael Bunker, which I’ll now have to read), and it’s my fault for picking it up when I was tired and not noticing it had “novella” written on the front, but god damn! Leah is an awesome character, and the world is gorgeous, and ‘the Girl in the Wilderness’ best come soon or I’ll die.
This is so not even a review. Both books (the White City and the Girl in the City) were excellent, read them if you want something quick and beautiful, don’t read them if you’re the type to get drawn in and fall in love with characters, because then you will feel ripped off at the sudden, devastating endings.