ARC Review: Inherit Midnight by Kate Kae Meyers

 Inherit Midnight

By: Kate Kae Meyers

Publication: February 10th, 2015

Genre(s): Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller

Find it: ~Goodreads~Barnes & Noble~Amazon~

My rating: ⭐ ⭐

 The Competition:
Outlandishly wealthy Grandmother VanDemere has decided to leave her vast fortune to the family member who proves him or herself worthiest-by solving puzzles and riddles on a whirlwind race around the globe, from the mines of Venezuela to the castles of Scotland. There will be eight competitors, three continents…and a prize worth millions.    The Players:
Seventeen-year-old Avery is the black sheep of the VanDemere clan, the ostracized illegitimate daughter. Finally, she has a chance to prove herself . . . and to discover the truth about her long-lost mother. Marshall might be Avery’s uncle, but there’s no love lost between the two of them. He’s her main competition and he’ll do anything to win-including betraying his own children. Riley is the handsome son of Grandmother VanDemere’s lawyer. As the game progresses, Avery falls hard for Riley. Suddenly, losing the game might mean losing him, too.As the competition takes treacherous turns, it becomes clear there can only be one victor. Who can Avery truly trust? And is winning worth her life?

Inherit Midnight had plenty of potential, but I felt that it didn’t deliver. I didn’t feel connected to the story, I didn’t find myself cheering for the characters, and reading began to feel a bit like homework as every little annoyance, whether it was from the characters, the writing, or the story itself- built up as the book progressed.

Avery was a Mary Sue, plain and simple. All of her family members were awful, snooty, and even violent. Avery was the only one who wasn’t any of those things and her Grandmother’s favoritism was shown, especially when Avery got a whole research team, a partner to help her with the challenges, her own personal tablet, and access to her Grandmother’s library and other key things for the challenges from Grandmother VaDemere’s law firm.

Speaking of this law firm, who in their right mind would support an old women who created a challenge to teach her family members respect and other values in the form of dangerous competitions that take place all around the world? That’s too far-fetched. Shouldn’t the press be picking up on this story? What would have happened if some of the family members died during the challenges? Who would be sued and who would be doing the suing?

As for the challenges themselves, they were interesting, but I failed to feel any excitement or tension. I knew who was going to win the competition right away and that took away any impact these sometimes dangerous challenges had. Certain challenges felt too easy, while others required skills that our characters seemed to instantly have while participating in them, but would be hard for any person who wasn’t a character to pick up right away.

In my opinion, the writing and characters were dull. I didn’t remember half of Avery’s relatives-they seemed disconnected from the story, as if they were only there to be tiny obstacles in the way of Avery’s success. In fact, all of these relatives hate Avery, and one makes a point of calling her a “slut” randomly. Avery is not a slut. That insult came out of nowhere, and I’m sure if the characters were real, even they would know how weak that statement is. It felt to me that the author was trying to give us another reason to feel bad for our poor protagonist, but I really didn’t like that name being thrown around.

Certain phrases within the story felt awkward and fake, all of them with sugary and cliche words and an exclamation point to match: “How I hated the sound of his condescending voice!” and “It felt so good to wear anything other than a baggy school uniform!” are just a few examples. I understand that an exclamation point should be use to express emotion and add some color to usual sentences, but it felt out of place in those phrases.

Moving onto romance, Riley and Avery were obviously falling for each other throughout the book, though I didn’t feel much chemistry between them. Some of the big, swoony moments came out of nowhere, and I was left wishing for Avery and Riley to tone it down a bit. Overall, the romance just didn’t feel very significant to me, since the two characters involved weren’t significant to me either.

To sum up, most of Inherit Midnight fell flat for me. There was one specific storyline between Avery and her long-lost mother that I found interesting, but overall many things felt cliche, dull, and insignificant.

~A review copy was provided in exchange for a honest review. Thank you to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for this digital ARC!~