Review: The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce

Title: The Weight of Souls
Author: Bryony Pearce
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Fantasy
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
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Sixteen year old Taylor Oh is cursed: if she is touched by the ghost of a murder victim then they pass a mark beneath her skin. She has three weeks to find their murderer and pass the mark to them – letting justice take place and sending them into the Darkness. And if she doesn’t make it in time? The Darkness will come for her…

She spends her life trying to avoid ghosts, make it through school where she’s bullied by popular Justin and his cronies, keep her one remaining friend, and persuade her father that this is real and that she’s not going crazy.

But then Justin is murdered and everything gets a whole lot worse. Justin doesn’t know who killed him, so there’s no obvious person for Taylor to go after. The clues she has lead her to the V Club, a vicious secret society at her school where no one is allowed to leave… and where Justin was dared to do the stunt which led to his death.

Can she find out who was responsible for his murder before the Darkness comes for her? Can she put aside her hatred for her former bully to truly help him?

And what happens if she starts to fall for him?

Review by Nara


The Weight of Souls has one seriously epic premise. I mean, marks being left on the protagonist's skin by the ghosts of the murdered- marks which turn into the Darkness and will consume her if she doesn't transfer it to the murderer in time...DAYUM. I was so hoping that the book itself would be able to support the epic-ness of the premise, but unfortunately it falls a little short.

In the book (as evident from the blurb), there's a "secret society" where nobody ever goes in and nobody ever comes out. Well, not really, people just aren't allowed to leave it (I couldn't resist the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reference haha). I have to admit though, the whole being unable to leave the club seems a bit stupid to me. It was just overly dramatic to have people who got kicked out of the club and therefore "forced" to leave the school. Surely you'd want out from the insane club that makes you do ridiculously dangerous dares anyway. I would transfer schools and good riddance to the damn club.  Also, is getting one's social standing cut THAT bad? Because that's the punishment for leaving the "protection" of the club- I mean, come on!

The romance- like waaht just happened? Seriously, this was not built up well. At the start of the book, Justin was quite clearly one of the antagonists. He did not like Taylor and Taylor did not like him (or so it seemed...) Justin dies, and BAM apparently that is some sort of catalyst for sweet, sweet lurve. Yeah, I didn't see the attraction. And then the background is explained, and dude what a cop-out. I'm not sure I should talk about it in the review because it's a minor spoiler, but basically it was like -_-  (Also, for those who've read the book- did anyone else find it really annoying how the characters called Taylor names like "Lucy Liu" and "China"? Could you get any more creative? #sarcasm)

The pace of the novel was quite reasonably set. It is a mystery, so pace is quite an important factor in keeping the reader's interest going. In terms of the writing though, one thing I was confused about was the relevance of the Egyptian mythology. To be honest, it just seemed like it'd been thrown in for not much reason at all. The whole Anubis etc. aspect of things just didn't quite fit the story that was being told. I mean, I understand that you can adapt the original story by adding in your own twist, but it really seemed as if the Egyptian thing was just put in there because it's a familiar theme. It was just really random...

Well, basically, The Weight of Souls wasn't terrible. It just wasn't as amazing as the premise set it up to be.

It was okay

Ratings
Overall: 6/10
Plot: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Cover: 3/5