The Heartless City by Andrea Berthot

Maybe it's because I read this alongside Broken Dolls, but while The Heartless City is a decent story, it didn't have that spark that Broken Dolls had for me.

The Heartless City follows two characters - Elliot Morrissey, the son of the city's most famous doctor and Iris Faye, a strange American. Iris was born unusual, Elliot made himself unusual (although not quite in the way he hoped). Both of them live in isolated London, which was cut off from the rest of the world when the Hyde monsters were let loose. When chance threw them together, Elliot finds himself attracted to Iris, and Iris finds a chance to get revenge. But more than that, the two of them will have to work together to find out who or what's behind the Hyde phenomenon.

First things first, I thought the concept of the Hyde monsters was unusual and well-done. I was definitely intrigued by that from the start. The story too, was decent, and flowed at a good pace. All in all, I should have been satisfied.

But, there was something missing from the book. As soon as Elliot and Iris met, I could see how their relationship would turn out. Once I was introduced to Elliot's best friends Cam and Andrew, I could see how that was going too. The philosophising by Elliot didn't really help either. The most original character of the lot had to be Philomena, who's clever and breaks all the rules.

I suppose I may have expected too much. The concept of the story was original enough that I expected the plot and the characters to be different. Unfortunately, while they were decent enough that I would have enjoyed it (had I gone into the story without any expectations), my expectations were just a bit too high, and the story didn't sparkle for me like it could have.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review.