Blog Tour: Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore

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Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore

Dark Metropolis, #1
published on June 17th 2014 by Disney-Hyperion
paranormal | romance | LGBT

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Cabaret meets Cassandra Clare-a haunting magical thriller set in a riveting 1930s-esque world.

Sixteen-year-old Thea Holder’s mother is cursed with a spell that’s driving her mad, and whenever they touch, Thea is chilled by the magic, too. With no one else to contribute, Thea must make a living for both of them in a sinister city, where danger lurks and greed rules.

Thea spends her nights waitressing at the decadent Telephone Club attending to the glitzy clientele. But when her best friend, Nan, vanishes, Thea is compelled to find her. She meets Freddy, a young, magnetic patron at the club, and he agrees to help her uncover the city’s secrets-even while he hides secrets of his own.

Together, they find a whole new side of the city. Unrest is brewing behind closed doors as whispers of a gruesome magic spread. And if they’re not careful, the heartless masterminds behind the growing disappearances will be after them, too.

Perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare, this is a chilling thriller with a touch of magic where the dead don’t always seem to stay that way.

 

If we’re being honest, I actually wanted to read this based on pure intrigue. I never actually expected to like this one, but I did. I’ll warn you potential readers, though: The synopsis could be very misleading. It gives us the impression that the book is solely Thea’s story, when it’s actually more of her friend, Nan’s. It wsan’t a very bad thing, but I would’ve liked to expect the multiple POVs when going into the book.

“I’ve always felt fairy tales are as true as anything that really happened.”

If you want to read about a fresh new take on zombies–Dark Metropolis is your book. The zombies were creepy–I swear I could feel my skin crawl when I read about their lust for blood. It wasn’t your typical I-rose-from-the-dead-give-me-your-blood type of zombie. Well, it was, but there was so much more to how the zombies came to be, and it was a fascinating (and highly disturbing) process.

Dark Metropolis had a cast of interesting characters with different backgrounds. We have Thea, whose mother’s going insane from the death of her father, Nan, who was color-blind and couldn’t hear music properly, Freddy, who has been living a lie, and Sigi, who is not in the synopsis but plays an important role in the story.

While the individual characters had interesting backgrounds, I felt like their personalities were kind of flat. The characters felt a bit like cardboard cutouts. The constant change in POV also made it a bit hard for me to connect to the characters, since I felt like their stories were always cut short.

I couldn’t care less for the romance. We had two major romances: one between a boy and a girl, and another one between two girls. Neither made me root for them–I didn’t really care whether or not either couple would end up together. The romance was just kind of there. I didn’t get any feels from it. Okay, well, I support them, but it didn’t matter if they got together or not. Am I making any sense?

What did give me feels was the awesome mother/father/daughter relationship between Thea and her parents. She cared for them both and she did everything she could to show that. Her parents loved each other so much and scenes between them made me shed a tear or two.

Dark Metropolis was a dark and gritty book with a diverse set of characters and a snooze-worthy romance for anyone looking for a decent, new zombie book.

 

Jaclyn Dolamore

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Jaclyn Dolamore was homeschooled in a hippie sort of way and spent her childhood reading as many books as her skinny nerd-body could lug from the library and playing elaborate pretend games with her sister Kate. She skipped college and spent eight years drudging through retail jobs, developing her thrifty cooking skills and pursuing a lifelong writing dream. She has a passion for history, thrift stores, vintage dresses, David Bowie, drawing, and organic food. She lives with her partner and plot-sounding-board, Dade, and two black tabbies who have ruined her carpeting.

 

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Aimee enjoys dark, creepy and graphic books. She may not be able to sleep properly at night, but for some reason she can’t stay away from all the gore-y, nightmare-inducing books.

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