Title: Ipseity

Author: hcwilhelm

Genre: Science Fiction/Paranormal/??

Quick Summary: Many ideas choked the execution.

Thoughts:

There was... a lot to sift through in this book, because a lot of it is so deeply tangled.

The world, for example. There are so many cultural combinations it makes my head spin. We have guns - sophisticated ones at that - and yet people also use scimitars and kitanas [more in a moment] and bo staffs as well. And there's so many fashion contradictions. Why does the Council decide to wear outfits from Medieval Europe and yet then we'll get people like the Twin Guardians who wear suits and such. We use tablets and microchips. This blend of old-timey and new-timey is... confusing at best.

In general there's... many consistency issues.

Like the first two chapters. This is supposed to be some big moment for Ava and there's so much humor that it undercuts the impact these moments have? 

Also, I can't believe I've found a phrase I hate more than "malachite eyes".... several times in this book, food descriptors are used for eye colors. "Blueberry eyes". "Fake chocolate eyes" it is... unintentionally hilarious and also incredibly frustrating to read. Don't be scared of saying blue! Don't be afraid of saying brown! That's what they are! It's okay!

This novel also does that staple speculative fiction thing that I loathe in which we Capitalize Important Terms instead of like... giving them a name. The Council. The Capital Building. The Control Center. 

What isn't wildly, tonally inconsistent is just... so convoluted it makes my head hurt. Why is Ava given guardians who are such a massive liability, especially when it's clear she's not ready for them and is destined for failure? Why are they called guardians if they aren't even guardians? They're basically glorified backup dancers. How the hell do these abilites come from? And, back to the weapons, why a katana. They're... actually terrible combat weapons. Even the best-crafted ones are so easy to break. In general like, don't bring a sword to a gun fight but a katana is basically like bringing a stick.

I also have a problem with the characters themselves. I couldn't tell Gio and Marc apart, really. I thought they were the same person with different names until the second chapter. And Darious and the "crown prince" twins all read almost exactly the same with very slight personality deviations. One is slightly smarter and one is potentially a bad guy but they're all the same, devil-may-care smirking bad boys I've seen a hundred times already times three. And beyond that, Ava is kinda... annoying? Not all the time, but enough of the time to make me clench my jaw a bit when she talks.

Also the fact Ava killed a whole bunch of wolves in fifteen seconds with a sniper rifle made it... a few shades shy of believable.

All in all I got to chapter ten before I decided to call it quits. It really hurt my head to try and parse through this all and, honestly, I was really bored by then. And also kind of creeped out by Ava/Marc. How old is Ava because their not-relationship is either incredibly skeevy or slightly disturbing depending on the answer.