The Gender Secret

First, I keep seeing the ad for this book on Facebook and I commented that the series ( I bought all 7) was shallow and had no character development. There were gaping plot holes and it read more like a die hard movie than a deep thinking story that it started out to be. The plot completely changes as If someone else started writing it in the middle. This was my honest review. They also banned me from their Facebook page and deleted my review which was deceitful and theyre just trying to sell more books. If you read most of the reviews of this series, youll see its not that good. Book one is compelling. The other books have you skipping pages because its some sort of impossible shoot out every other page. The plot is weak and makes no sense past the first book. I did buy all 7 and read them just to see how it ended and was as disappointed as I thought I would be. If you like the shoot up kind of action books, youll probably be entertained. If youre looking for a good story line with compelling characters, dont bother.

Ive read quite a bit of this series, as well as some others by the same author. The series vary greatly in the quality of writing, though all are aimed at YA audiences and the writing is juvenile.

Why does the quality vary so much? Because Bella Forrest is a pen name for a self-publishing person that uses a variety of ghostwriters or people that dont get credit for a novel even though they are writing it.
Why would someone do this?
On the ghostwriters part, they simply make more money if they appear as one author and get a cut from the one pen-name publisher- more so than if they were cranking out one book a year themselves.
On the self-publishers part, because they can quickly amass a large amount of books under one author/brand to sell- this boosts their profits because they can run a successful marketing campaign for their brand/pen name and make bank, vice one author who turns out a book a year they turn out 10. Or 30. This self publisher has released almost 100 books in about 5.5 years….do the math. This can boost a self-publisher into a 6 figure business.
So whats the issue? Publisher makes money, ghostwriter gets a cut, and the reader is….happy. (Well, when not harassed for reviews to push the brand). The issue in Bella Forrests case is because this person actively markets themselves as sole author and single author autobiography (eg I grew up here and have had a love for reading/writing since x.) Its unethical and deceptive to the public. Not to mention this kind of writing is not that great either. (Some series better than others).
I personally know a self-publisher who also uses ghostwriters, and its a great entrepreneur opportunity- they hit it big and make six figures a year as a part-time job. I say more power to them As LONG AS YOU ARENT USING DECEPTIVE MARKETING. Bella Forrest, unfortunately does. And this series particularly just sucks (sorry ghostwriter, but your writing needs some revision). For a true connoisseur of fantasy, try something else. Some of the other series dont suck, but theyre still a quick walk in the park and not worth it knowing that the publisher is actively deceiving you.

The Gender Secret did hold my attention but it ended abruptly and was not a complete book. I don’t think a book in a series should end with “read the next book.” Each book should be independently complete. Please see The Home for Peculiar Children series as an example of excellence IMHO. Overall, the story was more like a single episode to a weekly television action drama than a legitimate book. In addition, the writing is okay but a bit strange. There are higher level vocabulary words oddly placed throughout the text as if the editor started randomly replacing easier word choices with more challenging ones. I don’t know if that makes sense but I have read many, many YA books and the rhythm of the vocabulary struck me as odd I must read on. I don’t think the series is a waste of time. It is not Hunger Games or Divergent or even as clever as A Series of Unfortunate Events, but it is not awful. I also thought the “romantic” elements in this book were oddly placed. It is odd, almost perverse, to talk about thoughts of attraction when someone’s got worms in their leg or red fly bites on their back. Stop It! I think the author did a fairly good job overall. The action and fight scenes are great and provide vivid descriptions for your imagination to play with.

So I’m actually really disappointed with the character development. I expected there to be some dynamic characters but both main characters fall a bit flat in their interactions with each other and their expectations from the world around them. I think Violet was a bigger disappointment since she had so much promise and she’s see so many things that “should” tell her to expect the unexpected and she keeps reacting the same exact way and doesn’t really seem to learn from anything.

I could totally overlook most of that, because the story really is a good concept but the descriptions are repetitive and unfortunately it kills the story for me when I find myself sighing at the same descriptive words used again and again. I really was hoping for this book to be better than the first and I’m not sure i’ll be getting the next book in the series.

I must admit that this second installment of the series was a bit more engrossing overall, which led me to once again continue the series. However, unlike the first book, this cliffhanger wasnt as impressive. I enjoyed the development of relationship between the young protagonist and her unlikely love interest; however, it was still a surface-level connection. Im going to give the third book in the series a go, simply because the writing was somewhat more intriguing; but, truth be told, my tolerance for this YA series is wearing thin.

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