Ania Ahlborn

This was my first taste of Ahlborn, and I'll undoubtedly look out for more of her books. Her nuance when it came to writing the character and their relationships in Seed was brilliant, and made it easy to keep turning pages. The book was fairly predictable, admittedly, but the characters were so vibrant and real that that didn't particularly bother me, particularly given that one might expect a book in this subgenre to follow a fairly predictable path.

The big weakness for me, and what brought it from a 4.5* read down to a 3.5* read, is a particular pet peeve of mine, no pun intended. I can't stand it when writers give their characters pets, but don't do so in a believable fashion. I've read so many books where a dog owner just up and left town for a weekend without any mention of dog care, despite the short notice trip, or where cats or dogs simply didn't behave believably. I love animals, but if an author is going to include them, they have to do the work to include them in a believable manner, acknowledging that dogs have to be walked or go outside to use a bathroom just like all animals need to be fed regularly, cared for, etc. That's not to say I need to see a cat owner cleaning out the litter box, but I need to believe one exists. In the case of Seed, Ahlborn gave her family a dog, but it was only present when convenient to the story. It lived inside, so there was no question of it always being out of the house, but it only showed up when the story required it. Otherwise, it was as if the dog didn't exist, and because of the way she described the characters' relationships with the dog, there was no way to believe it wouldn't have been reacting and underfoot in a lot of plot moments. But, instead, it seems she only wanted it in for two convenient plot moments...and to be honest, that put a huge damper on the book for me. It shot through the believability of the family and the situation, and a scene that she meant to have a huge emotional impact ended up feeling more predicted and annoying, in large part as a result of this oversight.

You might be thinking this shouldn't be such a big problem, but in a book where the larger plot is fairly predictable, engagement with characters and their believability means everything. And so when what's supposedly a big part of a family's home life is a problem that can't be ignored, that ends up being a fairly serious weakness--at least in my opinion.

I'll absolutely read more of Ahlborn's work, but I'll likely avoid any where there's a family pet if I can figure out which books that might be based on CWs and book reviews.… (mere)