Review: Waterfall by Lauren Kate

Title: Waterfall
Author: Lauren Kate
Series: Teardrop, #2
Format: eARC, kindly provided by the
publishers via Netgalley (Thank you!!)
My rating: 1 / 5

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Heart-stopping romance, devastating secrets and dark magic, from bestselling author Lauren Kate. The stunning sequel to Teardrop.

Eureka's tears have flooded the earth and now Atlantis is rising, along with its evil king, Atlas. Eureka is the only one who can stop him – but first she must learn how to fight.

She travels across the ocean with Ander to try and make sense of the dark world her sorrow has created. But dark secrets are hidden in the depths – will she be strong enough to defeat Atlas, or is her broken heart just what he needs to power his rising kingdom?

Eureka has the chance to save the world. But she'll have to give up on everything – even love . . .

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

*I received an eARC from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This didn't influence my opinion in any way.*

I love mythology, and once I found out this series involved Atlantis I HAD to read it. I read Teardrop quite a while back and while I didn’t really love that book, I was curious enough about the overall concept to continue on with Waterfall and see how things progressed. Unfortunately, this isn’t anywhere near the continuation I was hoping for. This might sound a little harsh, but I can’t word it any other way: I didn’t like anything about this book.

Plot and writing style: It wasn’t my cuppa at all. Right from the first page I was struggling, and it took me over a month to read Waterfall – considering I usually read a book or two a week, this should have been the hint that I wouldn’t enjoy the book. The overall story was very hard to follow at times, and it felt very choppy at best with nothing to mesh and bring everything together. It was very detail-light, and nothing was properly fleshed out. I struggled to picture how the world is supposed to look, or even where the book is set, and this links into my next point…

World-building: Correction, WHAT world-building?! This is the part I’m most frustrated about. Once I see the word ‘Atlantis’ thrown around, I want lots and lots of Atlantis. I don’t care about anything else – GIMME ATLANTIS! Eureka wants to fix what she created? Good for her… now, gimme Atlantis. She’s confused, moody and hurting? I don’t really CARE. I still don’t see ATLANTIS! She can’t choose between Brooks and Ander – Oh my heart BLEEDS for her. KILL THEM ALL! And painfully! JUST. GIVE. ME. ATLANTIS!!

One-dimensional characters: The characters are the bread and butter of why I read, and when I don’t like ANYONE in the story, I begin to question why I stuck with the book for so long. It’s a little obvious I didn’t like Eureka. She was a pain for the vast majority of the book, and her narrative was agonising to read at times. Even when I don’t connect with the main character, there’s usually a secondary character I can connect with, but unfortunately all the other characters were just as flat, emotionless and unappealing. The only one I had a few vague moments of connection with was Ander, but it wasn’t enough to help me enjoy the story.

Sadly, Waterfall just wasn’t for me. I was completely bored with everything that happened, and I had to force myself to keep reading, and I found myself skimming over pages rather than being caught up in an awesome story. I was under the impression that this was going to be a trilogy… but with the ending, I’m struggling to see how another book will work. I haven’t read any of Kate’s other books, but I do own a copy of Fallen. I’m a little hesitant to start it now as I didn’t click with her writing style here. Hopefully when I get around to trying out that series I’ll enjoy it.