A Rare One Star Review

(Disclaimer: This is a review written less than 5 minutes after finishing the book so it is not articulate as I would normally like my reviews to be. I may rewrite it later when I can stand to think about this book without vomiting.)

This books is a bad Spanish novella that decided to cram everything into two episodes to save money.

The first half was actually more 2 stars for me. It was frustrating that the characters were so flat and everything was rushed without details. The sex that was present in every conversation irked me, but I understood the author was trying to stay true to the book The Picture of Dorian Gray which Doreen was based on. Oscar Wilde would be appalled to see what has been done.

I try to be kind to books, so I am going to be generous and say this was 1.5 star book for me, which only means I have read worse. After reading another reader's review I thought the second half of the book would be better, but it wasn’t.

The closest I came to relating to a character throughout the entire novel was when Heidi was betrayed. I didn’t care about any of their exaggerated and dramatic back stories. I didn’t care about the caricatures that never progressed.

I went to put the book down so many times, but I kept hoping that a line, a scene, anything would wash the bad taste this book left in my mouth.

Doreen, supposedly the center of this story was unbelievable and I didn’t care what happened to her.

Heidi, repelled me with her lack of morals rather than fascinated me. She was too extreme to be interesting. None of her secrets were ever fully revealed or clarified (and they were honestly the only reason I kept reading) and she was just an idiot.

Biz, I couldn’t even like the “nice girl” because she never did anything. Sure she was an artistic afterthought, but she contributed nothing to the story but the picture.

Which leads me to how forced the parallels between the origin book and this remake feels. This book had no originality. There was nothing added to the story, only taken away. Please, do not read this book.

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