AGGHHHH!!
god i love rachel so much. it's been a long time since a book made me cry, and though the book may have been a bit slow going from the beginning to the middle, the conclusion made things quite worth it. trent doesn't show up for as long as i would've hoped, and neither does al, but al does play quite a big part when everything does go down. i found it extremely entertaining that trent, this big elf badass, was still afraid of al. i remember and loved pierce from the short story in a separate anthology about rachel, and i absolutely can't wait for the next volume now that he's back.
and yes, rachel does still seem to be addicted to danger. edden annoyed the crap out of me. he was just completely out of his element the entire time, and acted like he knew more than rachel what was best for a situation. ignorance? hell yeah. he seemed cool in prior books, but i'm not so sure now.
and did i say that i love pierce? i'm full of swooning right now just thinking about the character. and of course, moms know all.
robbie also annoyed the crap out of me. it didn't seem half fair that rachel had to sacrifice everything in order to protect herself and those she loves, and her brother not only gets everything he wants, but he doesn't appreciate the sacrifice she has to make. i'm almost proud of her mom for being so understanding, but am also sad that the character won't be showing up much anymore. i guess this will mean that in future volumes other characters will play bigger roles, or the demons will step up to the plate full time. she's shunned, what else can she do?
something that confuses me: why was trent willing to take a pic with a shunned witch? i have a feeling the next book will involve trent somehow, and demons. i'm craving for a fix of minias, and i'm really annoyed with rynn cormel. what else? the writing at times seemed paced weirdly, but it doesn't bother me as much as it would in other books, simply because soon enough i live and breathe rachel morgans. she brings to the table a sense of realism i don't find much in other books, and there's a little hint of desperation behind her heels at every corner. i love seeing a character react, it says more about their personalities than anything else. priorities, maybe? i can't wait now, and i'm giddy with excitement over finishing it, which is why i'm making next to no sense.
but there's nothing i can do, because the next volume won't be out until a year from now. i'm not sure what i'll do with myself in this time in between, but i've waited two years in a row now, so i know i'll survive it.
le sigh.
okay, i'm gonna go back and reread that elevator scene a million times now. and did anyone else totally love that rachel stands in front of the fountain in this cover with her splat gun? because i sure did :)
i've been putting off this read for long enough that i'd really not expected much from it.. in particular i wasn't attached to any of the characters, and so i didn't really care what happened to them either way. that, and the villain was very typically evil, so i wasn't much impressed. after having nothing to do and pretty much wondering what the hey, i was actually pleasantly surprised.
the bond between rain and ellysetta is definitely stronger. i don't get annoyed at ellysetta as much, because she's not quite the wimp she was when the first book started, or even throughout most of the second book. that she was willing to sacrifice herself in order to save the tairen eggs appealed to me for her character in a way it never has before, and that she's willing to take charge with rain makes it seem a bit more realistic too. throughout the second book i kept noting that they were supposed to be "equals" and yet she never really steps out of her place. this book addresses that issue nicely.
several characters perish in this book, i think. i'm not sure whether i should be glad or not, since i didn't care what happened to them either way, but it seems like a precursor for other characters to die. i think in order for them to win this war ellysetta is going to have to turn dahlreisen back into their former elf forms. tenn seems dead struck on opposing her, as are most of the council members. three marks.. what does that mean? she's that much closer to losing, and it comes a little too close for comfort. i think the battle at the end resembles helm's deep in lotr a lot, and i wonder if that's where she took her inspiration. how are ellysetta and allies supposed to find out the secret behind how he's opening these portals? if they're supposed to leave no trace of magic, i mean. and how are they going to rescue her fey parents and the tairen souls that are now under the mage's control?
i'm actually looking forward to the next book. which is infuriatingly hard to dig up info on, because on her site it says it'll release on june 2.. whereas on amazon and anywhere else, it hasn't even shown up yet. slow publishers? someone isn't doing their job as fast as they shouuulllld...
wow, two books in a row. if every week were like this, i wouldn't need much more kind of destressing.
i expecting less from this volume of mercy, i don't know why. i guess by the end of iron kissed i was more like okay than omg. and the preview i read of this book wasn't that titillating, so i was more blase about it. which, in the end, was really a good thing.. because this book really caught me off guard.
we also get some kind of foreshadowing from a creepy minor side character, and so we know there has to be a showdown in the future somewhere, not to mention the hint is that coyote will die. mercy? probably, but i'm interested now in how ms. briggs will write out of that one. obviously, mercy can't stay dead even if she dies--she's the main character. and i don't believe it's possible to end the series by writing her off; there would be no ending. a toughie, but i guess she must have everything planned, because that's how this book felt.
i just realized that this book may actually be two in one.. because there was the issue of marsilia, and then there was blackstone. it could've easily been extended and separated into two volumes, but i really appreciated that that was not done. there was a brief period of interlude in between the two conflicts; once one was resolved, she gets a breath, goes about some normalcy, before diving headfirst into the second problem. i was actually sad by the death that was revealed in the second conflict, because it seemed to be so unexpected. makes me curious now why the vamp was called "the monster."
relationship stuff happens with her and adam, which i'm glad of. sam is a little in the background here, which i hope will change. stefan makes me feel sorry for him; he seems to care much for mercy, and he holds almost no place in her little repertoire there. he strikes me as the outsider, and i wish that wasn't the case. by the end.. she might have gained a new ally. i don't know. tree in her yard? i wonder what will play out with the walking stick.
now i'm actually looking forward to the next volume. her writing is so well done, i can't help it. little details.. like remembering that friend wasn't a sean or stan at all, but a nick.. those little details add realism that would be lacking in other books i read, like, no offense, carrie vaughn. so regardless of disjointed plots, i will pick briggs over vaughn any day.
plus her characters actually have a sense of humor.
actually, i don't get the title at all. i was hoping there would be some clarification, but unfortunately not, i guess.
this one started off pretty slow, and i don't know why, but i liked kitty persuasive and clever rather than cornered and afraid. i know she must have some of those moments.. but most of the shit that went down happened as a result of other people's efforts, and not hers at all. she really didn't do much, as in, she wasn't badass in the slightest. i thought we'd established in the last book that she was willing to get her own hands dirty? not in this one, i guess, and that bugged me slightly. couldn't say why.
personally, i still feel like ben and her still don't have much chemistry. mike and i get along better than that; we're playful, and open with each other. the relationship between those two seems to be not as open.. there was much hiding stuff from one another, and instances where they obviously don't know each other as well as the audience might hope they would. ben just generally annoys me. he seems very typical and cookie cutter.. if i had to choose a male character that was written to play it safe, it would be ben. cormac was my thing because he had more character, but there was always that barrier that he was human and she was not. so what? ben was human.
the characters don't interest me as much as they should, i guess, is my main point. but despite the slow start she actually does manage to get my interest in the plot, and the individual side characters' motives. there's much plotting abound, but by the end you're still left a bit confused as to who is to what. of course, since the next book comes out in a month, it won't be a mystery for much longer, but i'm hoping she will actually wrap things up rather than leave shit hanging like this. in my opinion, cormac in jail and her relationship with ben are still labelled to me as "shit hanging."
and btw, what kind of lycanthrope was balthazar? that was never revealed, i believe. and what was his real name? what was the purpose of that seductive crap when they could've just captured her to begin with? what was the point of the lovecraft reference?
hmm.
hmm.
well this book just went and took what i found annoying in the last book and magnified it. males are apparently completely submissive, which is, again, annoying. females are apparently all bitchy and sneaky and manipulative. kovok-mah's infatuated with her, but that doesn't mean anything when his MOTHER doesn't want him to see her. a society of mama's boys? oh yeah. so you know, i guess that's how much she means to him, in the end.
dar is still whiny. and oblivious. and helpless. this book portrays the males as a submissive species almost to make her look semi-able, but i feel that that wasn't accomplished. i felt extremely sorry for sevren, because he most definitely sacrifices almost everything for her, and gets nowhere. kovok-mah, on the other hand, is bound indefinitely to his mother's word, no matter what that is. it makes absolutely no sense to me.
the ending leaves you confused too. but i guess that was the intention of the ambiguous nature, which also annoyed me. what's the point of building this all up just to be like nope, she's not queen and hey, who knows if they get together? the bad guy still lives. what's the point of her vision telling her who her enemy is, and then she doesn't defeat it in the end? again, i don't get it. i can either assume by her children calling her muthuri that she either got with sevren and stuck to her orc lingo, or she finally managed to get with kovok-mah, somehow. but then why the dramatic exit from kovok-mah? makes no sense.
it tries to build an epic end by the time the battles meet, i know. i just don't know if i felt very excited about it. actually wait, yeah, no; i wasn't very excited by the "epic"-ness. i'm going to have to say this one was a pass for me :\ unfortunately. i really wanted dar to redeem herself somehow, but most of this and the last book was spent on developing orc culture rather than developing character. i wanted dar to grow as a character, but instead she sort of went backwards, from an admirable heroine to a pathetic one. she still pines for kovok-mah nonstop in this. annoying. i personally think there's a way to pine without being so teenage girl about it. once kovok-mah enters her thoughts she seemingly thinks in all exclamation marks, and forgets all else. we ARE reading about an adult, right?
then again, i remember that this character apparently had daddy issues. which we never had kovok-mah confront her about, if i remember correctly. so their "loving" relationship ultimately just isn't very convincing at all to me.
sigh.
this one was okay, compared to the first book. her character changes so abruptly from one second to the next that it annoyed me to no end. she was always indecisive, and she whines nonstop to kovok-mah. i'm not sure how he was ever portrayed as being attractive, since that wasn't how he was written in the first book. i never saw that transition, is all i'm saying. it was random and incompletely built.
she makes a 360 herself that annoyed me, because whereas she was strong and firm in the first book, and knew what she wanted... in this book she was constantly manipulated and never in control of her situation. not to mention ALWAYS pining after kovok-mah, which was annoying almost to the point of being funny. wth happened to her character? she went from assertive, self-assured, and confidant to a complete loser within a couple of chapters. hated it.
the finale was decent though, but again, happened very quickly where one second they're all having tea or whatever and the next i'm left stranded and a little bit lost. treaty? okay, works out. the buildup wasn't very good, i feel, but the conclusion wasn't bad for what little amount of build-up.
next.
decided to try my luck with his other works, and was pleasantly surprised despite preset expectations. the heroine is strong, witty, and tough, which is just the way i like them. i wasn't sure whether there was any romantic involvement either way though, but that's fine with me, since i'm more pleased usually by the hint of romance rather than actual romance. what can i say? i like being teased.
anyway, the encampments presented in this story, of cavalry and war, is very realistic to me. i'm not even sure why, because obviously i've never been involved in a war. it's just that there is a certain kind of darkness to the way it's portrayed, and it's not a straight-shot chess board game like it usually is in literature. i liked the amount of detail devoted to it, i guess, because i wasn't expecting it at all.
anyway, i keep trying to find characters in here that will recur in the shadows of the path trilogy he's now writing, and at first i thought it was going to be othur, but evidently not. we'll just have to see, i guess.
by the end of this i was looking forward to the next volume. here we go.
i read the copy that had the older cover, rather than this newer prettified version--which would've been nice to hold, i admit, but i like my books first edition :) i'm not sure who that is supposed to be on the cover, hennea or seraph, since the wolf is right next to her, and he's obviously supposed to be the eldest guardian son.
this one definitely didn't have the buildup that the previous one had. there was a certain goal to that one, and this one was just trying to tie up strings from the previous book, i feel. certain characters also act slightly out of character, i'm not sure if it's just me misinterpreting characters, but i thought it wasn't, in any case. it was weird to centralize the climax on the bard; i also felt that the villain wasn't very convincing. plus it was quite predictable, as the opening let you know from the get-go who the villain was going to be, that i was extremely frustrated that the characters didn't see it sooner.
i think this has to be the weakest i've ever read from her. "dragon blood" might've been it, i thought, but that was told in not so many perspectives, so that helps things along a bit. this was pretty scattered--the most i could say for it was that we did end up having a conclusion, and the characters were still pleasant. maybe i was expecting too much? could be, but still. the end where an introduced character dies because they stand around talking was too much for me.
shrug.
a very good book, as to be expected from patricia briggs. it was odd for it to not be centered on one specific character, but on a whole family of mages, pretty much, and the switching point of views did disorient me from time to time, but in this one i felt the purpose of the plot was intricate enough to have that not detract from anything overmuch. the character of hennea annoyed me from time to time, and i don't know how i feel about seraph as a character. the introduction which included how seraph and her bard husband met was a bit abrupt to me, because i didn't feel there was enough character buildup involved. or maybe i'm just slightly annoyed because we don't see too much romance between any of these characters?
anyway, to sum it up, i liked it, but perhaps not as much as some of her other ones. the covers seem a bit creepy too, and i'm not sure about that either. her daughter the weather witch is almost completely left out of this novel, and i don't know how i feel about that. the journey involved was nice though, and i appreciate it for that.
onto the next one then.
