Rating: 1.5
Synopsis: When a stranger gives Analiese Jordan a list of names before he dies, the last thing she expects to see is her own on it. Not. Cool. Her search for answers leads to the man’s grandson, Marek, who has dangerous secrets of his own. Both are determined to unlock the mystery of the list. But the truth is deadly. Analiese is a descendant of the God of Death, known as a Riser, with the power to raise the dead and control them. Finding out she has hidden powers? Cool. Finding out she turns corpses into killers? No, thank you. Now the trail plants her and Marek in the middle of a war between gods who apparently want to raise an army of the Risen, and Analiese must figure out how to save the world—from herself.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Entangled Publishing through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
I hate giving poor reviews. It's not fun, because reading is fun and someone (actually, a whole team of people) worked hard on this book to make it what it is. I tried very hard to like Analiese Rising. The premise sounded amazing but it became a disappointment very quickly. I was off the wagon by the second chapter and by the time she met the love interest I wanted to bash my head into my computer screen. It's hard to explain but even the structure of the sentences is boring. There's a lot of matter-of-fact statements with little prose, tone, or atmosphere. Which is a personal opinion, the writing style doesn't align with what I prefer, but that doesn't mean it's not good.
Analiese is just there. I have no opinions on her, she kind of just.... existed. I love that the process of writing her helped the author. I couldn't relate to her panic disorder but I'm glad people with mental illnesses are being represented as worthy of love and in a way that focuses on something other than their illness. Analiese is also one of the most inconsistent characters I've ever read. At one point, she says she is 100% ready to pack up and leave, then (not a full page later) refuses an offer to pack up and leave. It was the fastest 180 I've seen in a book ever. Without spoiling anything, there are a few decisions she makes in the first interactions with Marek that I truly do not understand, and seem out of character for a teen girl who is supposedly very reasonable and has anxiety. She seems very trusting of teen boys she is alone with.
Marek, I am very underwhelmed with. A lot of my qualms with him are the same as with Analiese. (Yes, he gets two sentences. He didn't make me feel enough for an opinion.)
Dalton (whose name I forgot halfway through, and then forgot about entirely until the end) is the powered up version of a Gay Best Friend, aka Gay Kinda-Brother. (YES! One sentence for Dalton, he was worse than Marek.)
Finally, the relationship between Marek and Analiese was fine. I wasn't rooting for them but I think they had their moments. It's very refreshing in YA when characters can look at each other and acknowledge their attraction instead of trying to deny it. The romance took a long time to turn into anything but I loved how Marek stood by Analiese through anxiety troubles and how they became friends before anything else.
Ultimately, Drake built a beautiful world with great potential only to have her characters come in and tear everything down. My biggest recommendation would be to read a few chapters and see how you like it.