99 problems, and a book ain't one

I'm so torn on my feelings about this book. On one hand, I really loved that this was a reimagining of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and I found the haunting more horror novel parts of this book to be brilliant! Unfortunately though there wasn't that many of them really. I thought that this area in particular is where this author shined. I found her darker scenes to be the most vivid. I truly hope she one day decides to write a horror novel, because I'd read the hell out of it.

On the other hand I found this to be a slow read for me. More often than not I was just waiting to get to the next macabre scene because those were the ones I enjoyed the most. I think maybe the issue for me was that this story was being pulled into so many directions, a mystery, a romance, a thriller, etc. that it ultimately didn't fully accomplish any of them. It was as if the foundations were there but none were fully fleshed out and realized. The romance ended up feeling rushed, the mystery seemed to rise and then fall away and then rise again, and the thrilling parts were too few and far between. Sometimes compelling characters can help make up for this type of thing a bit, but I had a hard time connecting with any of them. Annaleigh more often than not thought about doing things rather than actually fully going for it.

Ultimately House of Salt and Sorrows just ended up falling somewhere in the middle for me. I liked the roots individually, but as we went along they kinda grew tangled together, suffocating each from their full potential.

I received an ARC of this book from Delacorte Press via Netgalley and this is my honest review.