Review: Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves

Title: Slice of Cherry
Author: Dia Reeves
Genre: Horror
Pages: 505
Series: N/A
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Source: Won from Bibliognome

Goodreads Description:
Kit and Fancy Cordelle are sisters of the best kind: best friends, best confidantes, and best accomplices. The daughters of the infamous Bonesaw Killer, Kit and Fancy are used to feeling like outsiders, and that’s just the way they like it. But in Portero, where the weird and wild run rampant, the Cordelle sisters are hardly the oddest or most dangerous creatures around. It’s no surprise when Kit and Fancy start to give in to their deepest desire—the desire to kill. What starts as a fascination with slicing open and stitching up quickly spirals into a gratifying murder spree. Of course, the sisters aren’t killing just anyone, only the people who truly deserve it. But the girls have learned from the mistakes of their father, and know that a shred of evidence could get them caught. So when Fancy stumbles upon a mysterious and invisible doorway to another world, she opens a door to endless possibilities….

My Review:
Ugh...I was NOT a fan of this book. I feel really bad, because I think that the concept is SUPER amazing. I really really wanted to like this book! The daughters of a serial killer are ostracized by a town that condemns their dad for killing. And it turns out that the two sisters have inherited their father's lust for blood. Come on! That sounds fantastic. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into it at all. Whatsoever. I think it took me like 3 weeks of picking it up, reading 5 pages, and putting it down. I just couldn't enjoy it. I didn't associate with the characters, the style of the dialogue was really jarring to me, and I was just confused by a large part of the plot. I literally felt like my head was being drilled into by some rusty blunt object...it was THAT painful for me to get through.

The vast majority of the plot is spent switching between gruesome killing/torture scenes and depictions of the town of Portero and its monsters. I was not a fan. Either route could have been more fleshed out. Tell us about the torture scenes, what do they mean? what causes them? why are Kit and Fancy driven to them? or Tell us more about the history of the town, why exactly there are monsters and is it like this all over the world? Everything was very sketchy and vague, which left me unhappy and confused. The book felt like a debut author's first draft. It was so choppy at times, and the interactions between characters were laughable. I couldn't stand a single character and actually found myself hoping that they would all kill each other off soon and end my mysery.

One of the few redeeming qualities of this book was the writing style that Reeves uses to describe both the city of Portero and Kit and Fancy's "Happy Place". There was this underlying eerie quality that flows throughout the entire book, causing unease and tension...unless that was just my body's reaction to how much I hated reading the book. But no really, there was a kind of poetry and lyricism to Reeves' writing style that would have kept me captivated had I felt anything towards the characters. This book is really nothing like I've read before, and I doubt I will find anything remotely like it ever again. I feel like Reeves would do very well writing song lyrics or poetry...I just didn't enjoy her novel writing.

This is my first ever 1 Key review. I feel pretty bad about it, but I would rather eat nails than read another book in this series. I just couldn't identify with the characters, and the setting was so off-putting and confusing that I had a hard time keeping my attention on the book at all. Other people might enjoy this book, but it just wasn't for me...At. All.