Review: Tab Bennett and the Inbetween by Jes Young
Author: Jes Young
Tittle: Tab Bennett and the Inbetween
Release: May 1st 2012
Series: Princess of Twilight and Dawn 1
Reviewer: Kitt
Source: Author
Purchase:Lately Tab Bennett’s life is like a fairy tale. Unfortunately for her, it’s the Grimm kind. The kind where the woods are deep and dark and full of monsters; where a mother’s longing for something forbidden means terrible consequences for her daughter; where the huntsman who takes the princess for a walk in the woods plans to steal her heart – literally – right out of her chest.
Right up until the visions started, Tab would have described herself as normal. But her sisters’ disappearance brought long-hidden secrets into the light, revealing a world she never dreamed existed and a destiny she cannot deny. Now “normal” means wicked subterranean kings and murdered Elvish princesses and clandestine revenge schemes. Suddenly Tab is juggling her fiancé’s broken heart and a handsome prince’s irresistible advances while trying to unravel an assassination plot, and avoid a sociopath with an axe to grind.
As she struggles to hold on to the human world she’s always known and understand her place in the magical one she’s just discovered, dangerous forces have begun gathering around her. If she wants to live to see the happily ever after at the end of the story, Tab will have to figure out who she can trust, who wants her dead, and why. The answers will change everything she believes about herself, the people she loves, and the place she calls home.
Have you ever read a book, and while you were reading it, something was just… off to you about it? You’re not completely sure what it is, but something just feels wrong. This is the feeling I had throughout the entire adventure of Tab Bennett and the Inbetween. It wasn’t until after I had finished it and then gave it some time to sink in that I was really able to wrap my head around what it was that was really bothering me so much.
Tab Bennett has lived the perfect fairytale life. She has a large extended family, a smokin’ hot fiancé, a good job at the family bank, but when her sisters are murdered and buried around her family estate, she soon finds out that it has all been a lie. As her world comes crashing down around her, she soon discovers that the people she has spent every day for twenty-three years with is not, in fact, her real family, she can’t actually marry the man she’s been in love with for most of her life, and that her birth right has been painstakingly covered up for years.
What first bothered me was the ‘secret’ that Tab’s ‘Family’ was keeping from her. This secret is huge, epic! One that changes Tab’s life forever and… I honestly still have no idea why she was kept out of the loop. Something this big should have a reason behind the actions other than that was what her ‘Grandfather’ had thought was best for her. What was the point of keeping Tab in the dark about her heritage? What purpose did it serve? Why keep so much information from her instead of teaching her who she is, how to rule, how to defend herself? It doesn’t make much since to me considering their enemy.
Speaking of her family, the second reason was the lack of information given to the reader throughout the novel. Like take Tab’s sisters: By the time we enter the story, two of Tab’s sisters have been murdered and her recently acquired visions have Tab seeing her third sister, Rivers, last breath. What frustrated me the most was, by the end of the book, we know nothing about them and are left with tons of questions: Who were they? What did they do? Are they like her ‘cousins’? And if they were, what was there purpose besides cannon fodder? I have more, but you get the idea.
Last but not least were Tab and her ‘families’ actions themselves. For an extremely spicy novel filled with a heavy dose of lust and love, the book as whole gave off a decidedly more young adult vibe. Tab acted like a spoiled teenager rather than the mid-twenties young woman that she is. She would get angry out of nowhere or her reasons would be juvenile. Her ‘cousins’ are at least a century old, but they too suffered from the same childish fists of anger. Then there was her ‘Grandfather’, this man knew all the ends and outs, all the lies and truths, but he allowed things to continue that made absolutely no sense to me. Like Tab and her fiancé, Robbin. If he knew that Tab was betrothed to another man, why let their relationship continue to such a point?
I know it’s not going to seem like it, but I actually really did enjoy the idea behind Tab Bennett and the Inbetween. I read the whole thing in one sitting wondering what was going to happen next, and let me assure you, there was a ton happening! There’s nothing I enjoy more than a story about the wily Fae or some good high-stakes intrigue, but I think an editor would have helped flushed this story out better. I haven’t decided if I’ll read Tab Bennett and the Underneath yet even with Tab Bennett and the Inbetween’s cliff-hanger ending, I’ll just have to cross that bridge when it gets here.
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