Review: Hinder

Ｔｉｔｌｅ：Hinder

Ａｕｔｈｏｒ：Kristin Ping

Ｓｅｒｉｅｓ：Book 1

Ｒａｔｉｎｇ：★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

＊Ｎｏｔｅ：I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ethan Sutcliff seems like a normal seventeen-year-old—at least that’s what he’s trying to portray. In a secret society run by the Supernaturals, Ethan is what witches call a Bender. Benders are Witches’ Guardians, who are able to control a witches’ ability, bend it, or move it away from harming humans. In Ethan’s case, he is able to bend the Earth element. But at the age of fifteen, he lost all connection to it, and the reasons behind it could only mean one of two things: His Wielder is either dead, or hiding out somewhere.

Alex Burgendorf has been living in her aunt’s locket for the past sixteen years with her mother—a Fire Wielder, and her father—a Water Wielder. For sixteen years, her parents vowed to protect her, and they have, as she is the last Earth wielding witch. However, time is running out. Alex must find her Bender, or the fate of the Supernaturals might be at stake.

✩ Alex was really shallow, she was also kind of stubborn, and whiny.

✩ Ethan was also pretty shallow, but he was also really rude and a jerk and kind of oblivious.

❝ Mom worried constantly about that too. She said whoever my Bender was would never be able to resist me. That I had to be the strong one. Because earth Wielders were blessed–cursed?–with unnatural beauty. ❞

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

In all honesty, I wanted to like this book. It had a stunning cover and the premise seemed kind of interesting but in the end, it just fell flat. The book came off as shallow, a bit sexist, and just confusing. I only read about halfway, so this is a DNF review @ 42%.

Within the first 5 pages of the book, I was ready to put it down. I felt so overwhelmed by the amount of information being thrown at me regarding benders, wielders, witches, guardians, history, etc. It was just so much information at once that most of it just went in one ear and out the other. If anything, there should have been a glossary for the book that went into detail instead of taking up so much of the first chapter explaining rather than developing the story.

And not only that but the book is written in first person, so it makes it sound kind of awkward. When you’re thinking to yourself in your head you’re not really explaining the history of your world and culture/religion/etc to yourself. That’d be weird because you already know it. So the big info dumps didn’t work, especially not in first person.

Despite all that I decided to press on because I was hoping the book would get better. It did not. But, before I get into my issues with the book let me give you guys a brief overview so you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Ahem, enter Alex, the earth wielder, and her partner/earth bender, Ethan. Earth wielders are supposed to be the most powerful of all the elements, they’re supposed to be incredibly attractive and blah blah blah. Basically, they’re superior. And people resent them for it. Because they don’t want to be ruled over/kept in check by earth benders/wielders, assassins hunt them down and kill them. Alex’s mother decides to use a spell to keep her hidden away in a world inside a locket until she’s old enough/ready to find her bender. Okay, I think that about covers it. Now, let’s get into my problems with the story.

The first issue was that wielders and benders are not supposed to be romantically involved, but they’re supposed to find each other irresistible. Apparently, every pair ever has failed the test of Resistance. As a way to protect Alex from assassins and to help make the Resistance easier, her mother creates a glamour for Alex which will make her appear extremely ugly. Alex’s mother tells her that Ethan will find it impossible to resist her so it will be up to Alex to maintain the boundaries… Um, excuse you? Basically, you’re saying men can’t control themselves so women have to. That sounds like a basic rape culture mindset and it irritated me so much! I thought it was ridiculous to say something like that, even though I’m sure it wasn’t meant to come off that way.

❝ “What is wrong with you?” Alex demanded.

I leveled a look at her too. I’ve been waiting for you for a fucking hour. That’s what’s wrong. Learn to be punctual. Better, ask your mother to turn your ass into a clock.

I should’ve said that. It would’ve been the best comeback of the year. But I behaved. “Nothing. Can we start?”. ❞

The other problem with the glamour was that the book took that one aspect and focused on it entirely too much. Once the two characters met the book became completely shallow. No one could believe that Alex was an earth wielder because of how unattractive she appeared (in her glamour). Everyone, adults, teens, and even, yes, Ethan, made basically no effort to hide their surprise whenever they first met Alex. Even Ethan’s father said she was the opposite of what an earth wielder should be and he basically refused to accept Alex was one. It sent a pretty bad message considering earth wielders were synonymous with power and beauty: if you’re not beautiful, you can’t be powerful.

And, of course, Alex had to deal with so much bullying because of her looks. Even from herself. Alex constantly went on and on about how she missed her ass, her boobs, her hair, her height, her legs, her “sun-kissed skin”. It was ridiculous the number of times she mentioned these things. But there was also Ethan’s girlfriend, Soph, being super insecure (considering Alex was so “ugly” why would you even feel threatened?) and going out of her way to be a total ass to Alex. For no reason.

And then because I can’t be totally unfair and just pick on Alex–Ethan was a jerk too. We were constantly being told how Ethan was a great guy and that’s why every girl was after him, blah, blah, blah. BUT he was the one that called Alex an “ugly duckling” in the first place and basically got the ball rolling on the nickname/bullying.

He had his moments, sure, where he would offer Alex help (pick up her books, show her how to open her locker, etc), but it felt like a ploy to get us to like him. “Hey, check him out! He does nice guy stuff”. But then the next moment he’s judging Alex on her looks, or getting really pissed off at them for being late, being offensive, rude, and just an ass because he thinks he’s better than others. He just felt so fake and two-faced to me. I didn’t like him at all.

Plus, I took issue with him constantly comparing attractive female characters to animals. Soph was a tiger, Alex was a fox. He even had a moment where he said he knew he shouldn’t compare women to animals, but that he couldn’t help himself. Ugh. It just came off as really sexist to me, and I couldn’t stand it.

So, unfortunately, this book was a total flop for me. It had negative messages, didn’t develop the story enough, and had very shallow characters.

Hinder will be released on May 15th.