Mini Review | Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

⭐⭐⭐ 3/5 Stars – Overwrought prose at the expense of character. Disappointing & not up to the intense hype!

Format: Kindle

Read: February 2023

I was disappointed by this one. I had high hopes for it but despite the subject being a story that should be told this is going to be a forgettable one for me because I felt no connection to the characters.

I think the writing style was part of the issue for me. It is overwritten to my taste. Leila Mottley is a talented writer and she can write beautiful sentences.. but just because you can doesn’t mean you always should.

More often than not I find too much flowery and descriptive language gets in the way of character and plot. If I’m struggling to work out what is actually happening in the moment through the poetic metaphor I am not connected to the story or the character.

Less can be more. Clear, direct sentences can be powerful too.

Kiara always felt too detached for me, I found her cold and I just couldn’t get invested in her story as much as I really wanted to. I understand that to survive the horrific experiences she has would require some detachment and disassociation, but that does not for me make a compelling character. I never felt her emotions, I felt like there was always a wall up and I was watching her from a distance. I could not really describe her personality.

Over all I found it a very dry book and after about 50% I just powered through speed reading it to the end and never found anything to hook me in.

Night Crawling on Amazon