The Digital Renaissance: Review: City Of Light

Thursday, February 8, 2024

Review: City Of Light

City Of Light by Darren Deegan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Performance: **

Loosely based on Irish Myth and Legend, the City of Light tells a story from two PoV; a young girl on the wrong side of the tracks and a government stooge that allows the reader to “check-in” with the rulers of the city. The narration/performance was fair if somewhat choppy. The narrator struggled a lot with male character voices and the fits and starts tempo highlighted an odd emphasis now and again. Still, she managed to avoid the breathy wonder voice and up tick lilt at the end of each sentence that drives me nuts … so over all I could still enjoy the experience. The story itself was mostly teen drama … taking nearly half the book before it actually got interesting with some action (it took that long to get to the main plot hook of a heist gone wrong). There is an undercurrent of kidnapped children that was barely explained in the second half encounters and of course there are several anticipated reveals with few surprises. Over all that makes it an average fantasy for me with a sub-par narration.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#CityOfLight #TheZinSeries #FreeAudiobookCodes

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My Ratings Explained ...

[ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
[ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
[ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
[ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
[ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.