Conjured by Sarah Beth Durst

Conjured by Sarah Beth Durst

1.25 stars

“I’m not an unformed cloud. I’m a cloud that’s broken open, and my insides are pouring out like rain.”

Eve can’t remember where she came from. All she knows is that she is a witness to a horrible crime and that she is in a witness protection program. The crime she witnessed involves magic wielded by a serial killer. At night she dreams of carnival tents and buttons being sewn into her skin. The powers that come from inside of her drain her. Who is she and can she find out before the killer finds her? This should’ve checked all of my boxes. It should’ve been a book that I absolutely loved. Carnivals, magic wielding serial killers, working at a library, and dark magic. These are all yeses for me, but this book is a large NO. My whole reading experience consisted of me debating the pros and cons of DNFing this book. Naturally, I don’t have fond memories of reading Conjured and in fact, I’ve basically scrubbed it from my mind. It was not the book I wanted and I was so incredibly disappointed. The writing is all over the place and disjointed. There is no concise direction and the precision of the story is lost in Durst’s need to focus and incorporate meaningless and pointless conversations, descriptions, and scenes that take the reader out of the story. The only thing that saved this novel for me was the ending. If this had been a short story, I believe it would have been an incredibly strong one. This idea wasn’t fleshed out brilliantly and if the editors cut everything out and focused specifically on Eve’s origins then this would’ve been a win.


Whimsical Writing Scale: 1.5

“If my insides were a bookshelf, she thought, I’d be a jumble of volumes, stacked in random order and filled with blank pages.”

Who is Eve? To be honest, she spends the majority of the novel being defined by her toxic relationship on a domineering teenage boy instead of being defined by her own self. Did I like her? Not really, but she wasn’t developed enough for me to hate her. I was just tired of rolling my eyes into my head every time she made some disgusting comment about how Zach “saves” her or “breathes life into her”.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 2

I’m tired of romantic leads like Zach. He was absolutely disgusting. Nothing about him was redeeming and I wanted to scream with rage every time he opened his mouth in a scene.
“I don’t want you thinking that we can ever be friends. Unless it’s friends with benefits.”




Swoon Worthy Scale: -1

The Villain- I wish the villain was creepy or scary, but this story was too dang boring and incongruent to make any villain feel real or intimidating. The concept of him is interesting and I wanted more.


Villain Scale: 2

This novel left me feeling unfulfilled. It wanted to go in so many promising places was overwhelmed by a horrible romance, pointless plots, and poor character development. I stand by that this novel would’ve worked better as a short story. It’s quite disappointing really. I’ll never tell someone not to read a novel, but if you decide to pass on this one, you won’t be missing out.


Plotastic Scale: 1.25

Cover Thoughts: I absolutely adore this cover. It’s creepy and weird.

Thank you, Netgalley and Walker Childrens for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

 

Have you read Conjured? Are you a fan of Sarah Beth Durst? What are books that you would recommend by her that I may enjoy more? Let me know down below in the comments.