ARC Review: Disharmony: The Telling by Leah Giarratano

A psychopath... an empath... a genius.

Three siblings who will save the world – or destroy it.

They know nothing of each other. They know nothing of the Telling.

But they’ll need to learn fast if they’re going to survive...

A gripping new series about a collision of worlds, the power of destiny, and the darkness in us all...




Review:

Disharmony: The Telling sounded so promising. A psychopath, an empath, and a genius set to either destroy or rule the world depending on their upbringing. It sounded so paranormal and mystical and kind of out-of-this world. Sadly, it wasn’t really anything of the three.

The first thing I noticed when reading Disharmony was that Luke’s narration sounded... off. There was something about it the dialogue, too. It felt stiff and over the top. Like Luke was trying too hard to be a boy. And then I figured out why. It was written by a female author. Don’t get me wrong. There are some brilliant female authors out there that write male perspectives really well (Julie Kagawa and J K Rowling are first to pop to mind), but this one wasn’t so great. And from looking at the author’s bio, I understand she has experience in psychology... But Luke didn’t come across as a psychopath to me. Yeah, he didn’t talk about emotions and emotions weren’t mentioned, but I didn’t feel as if that was missing. I didn’t feel as if he was a genuine psychopath.

And the empath... Well. Yeah, she could feel emotions, but I wasn’t feeling it with her. I thought being an empath would be a little more overpowering. Like, you can’t escape the feelings and such. But the only times Samantha knew about somebody was with her readings. I felt like that maybe if it were a bit more challenging I would have been engaged more. These two situations made me disappointed and didn’t allow me to fully connect to the characters and story.

However, having said that, there was that one thing I love about Australian writers still in there: it was different. Yes, it had common and stereotypical elements but there were parts that really stood out to me. Luke being in this jail/rehabilitation things and Samantha’s gypsy upbringing were just so different and unique. Although, I found that Samantha and the characters from her story didn’t really have much Romanian about them, I still found it utterly unique and getting impatient waiting for her POV to come around.

There were sections of a first person POV, written in a diary but computer style. The first one had my gut clenching and I was super excited. The second, ehh. And the third (which was at the very end) made me wonder if it was just a way of making sure the reader understood what had happened.

Disharmony: The Telling had an amazing premise. Sadly, I couldn’t connect with the characters or their story.

Review: 1 star
Date Published: May 23rd 2012
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Source: For Review
Format: ebook
Date Read: May 2012
Page Count: 360
Series/Stand Alone: The Telling #1