TBR & Tangents by Rachel

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from NetGalley on behalf of BooksGoSocial

To be honest, I never grew out of my fantasy/paranormal phase. I grew up in the Harry Potter and Twilight eras, so whenever I have a book that brings all those themes together, I immediately pick it up. Fatal character flaw for myself? Maybe. At least I admit it lol.

When I read the basis of Penny Angel I was immediately intrigued, especially with the premise of her being suddenly introduced to a whole new world right beneath her. As I read more though I felt like I stumbled on each situation, which often left me confused and having to go back and read what was going on or who the story was focusing on. Even from the very start of the book I felt immediately lost, trying to already decipher what was happening.

There is a widespread list of characters that both revolve around Penny but also have their own side story. I am all for a heavy plot and cast of characters, but this time it felt like too much. Some characters had their own chapters and others only had parts of their lore sprinkled in with other characters. It was hard to distinguish between who was most important and who would become only a secondary character. The conversations and even internal dialogue felt jarring and very robotic. The emotions that were described felt forced and very singular. For how big of changes Penny went through I truly expected her emotions to ebb and flow with how the story progressed, but most of the time they felt stationary and only changed near the very end. The plot line was a unique twist on the genre, but it absolutely was lost between the 3 or 4 extra stories that were woven into Penny’s life. It wasn’t until the very end that things began to be put into place, which made it very hard to piece together up until them. I am all for figuring it out till the end, but this was so over the place it became very overwhelming to me.

I did appreciate all lore that was added to the story. It had traditional paranormal elements as you may expect but also went in depth on lesser-known entities and even different magic paths. I felt that the characters, even as many as there were matched the environment which I greatly appreciated.

I had high hopes about Penny but unfortunately there were too many moving pieces and a lack of emotion and cohesiveness to fully appreciate the entirety of her experience.