EDIT: to be fair, i do know i was overly harsh in this little rant here. it's just so hard not to be, when i was expecting so much.. and the characters keep changing faces on me, which frustrates me beyond belief and seems to be for no other purpose than to make me pull my hair out. but to be honest, i can say this was mediocre at best.. while i was expecting a whiff of fresh air, like the first book in the series. didn't happen. i will, however, still read the third in the hope of some kind of redemption, and so whoever reads what follows here.. if you don't feel the same, i'm sorry, and i do know i overreacted.
it's been.. *checks last post* wow, almost a month since i read the first book! i know i said that book really showed promise, and i was completely itching to read this one; unfortunately, the promise from the last book wasn't ever really carried onto this. my thoughts are that it might be that the first book was written in a leisurely manner before she got signed with the publishing company, because everything in this installment of her series spells of a rushed job to me. because i took so many breaks while reading this one.. there were many details that i might not completely remember. what's-her-name.. mira, i believe?--was annoying the pants off me. and the entire cast of characters, and the random introduction of some newer ones.. it just kept teetering on and going not much of anywhere. here are some minor fault points:
- mira and danaus's relationship starts off back to square one, which is to say, homicidal. i thought they'd gotten way past their "i want to kill you" phase by the end of the last book, but in this book it's almost like the author either forgot she had written them beyond that already, or she wanted to hang onto it as a sort of joke between the characters. whatever. one, that would be sloppy writing, and two, if it's a joke, not close to funny. seriously though, bravo on leaving the reader hanging onto every word and wanting more of danaus and mira.. but starting it like this? it's like shitting on all the character buildup from the last book.
- right after they land in venice, or a bit after, i smelled a bit of half-assed editing. she mentions something about having worn the same outfit throughout all her fights, but that is simply untrue; she changed into that girl-on-vacation's shirt and used her shower at the themis compound, remember? tsk tsk, i say.
- the mention of there not being as rich a history in the americas as europe is repeated throughout, and i wonder if anyone out there would take it as an insult; the native americans especially, considering that nothing in their culture qualifies as "history," or in danaus's words, that there isn't a sense of "history or identity" there. come on now, play nice.
- if the bori being a parasite to danaus's soul is the only thing giving him his powers, assuming it's also what gives him his immortality--saving the world from the bori and destroying the bori within him would render him completely mortal, and he would be weak and capable of dying. that's kind of a potential downer between mira and danaus's relationship, and it'll have to be explored sooner or later.
- whenever danaus defends her, she always inserts some private commentary stating that they're still enemies one way or another, and still want to kill each other. after about the tenth time, i honestly wanted to rip the page out; way to abuse the narrative voice, sheesh. it got tiring by about the second time.
- i honestly don't think rowe is as evil as he's made out to sound, and mira obviously has serious prejudices against the naturi. what if rowe has the same reasons as she does to be prejudiced toward her kind? frankly, for a second book with villains that are just as as single-faceted as they first seemed to appear spells lack of effort to me.
- i laughed out loud when she mentioned that danaus's outlook on a sentient being owned by another is wrong; technically, that would make domestication a sin.
- at two instances, she wakes up early in time to watch the sun set. the thought i had was, if the vampires in her universe are burned by sunlight, why did she have no problem walking over to a giant bank of windows either time? i mean, sure, it makes for a dramatic scene in the reader's head, but...
- here's another thought in the same line of context: she mentions that elders can teleport, sort of. if it's that instantaneous, with no distance limit, they could be continually teleporting to areas where it's still night, and not have to sleep/die at all. wouldn't that work? hell, they could freaking space travel, considering they don't even need to breathe. sci-fi vamps, here we come.
- there are too many hints that danaus likes mira, but nothing comes from it. a subtle touch here, a bit too much concern there, and it builds up, but with no outlet throughout the entire book, and it's frustrating. to make things worse, she goes and pairs her up with someone else. great.
- the one sex scene in here was so out of the blue and random that i can't help but think that she added it for marketing's sake, and not until after the book was finished, because it completely threw the pace of the plot. i wasn't even close to appreciating it.
- "I walked over to the nightstand by the bed and picked up my cell phone. Nicolai covered my hand with his before I could pick up the phone." umm.. more careful with the editing please? she picked it up, and then he stopped her from picking it up? what the hell?
- i remember it being like two-thirds of my way through the book already, and in the middle of the chapter she's still reintroducing events from the last book. first, she had already done that within the first few chapters. secondly, YES, we do happen to know who ryan is already, so christ, stop repeating yourself!
- the analogy of the night 'dying' is milked to death and back. when an author repeats her own little poetic phrasing over and over.. it was nice throughout the first book. when no new creative phrasing comes about, it spells writer's block and half-assed writing to me.
- funny thing: they have enough money to keep flying all over the place and stay at all the fancy hotels in the world--but no one gets anything laundered. she keeps mentioning she's down to the last clean garment and whatnot; well, hello, the hotels offer laundering as a service. geez.
- Chapter 19, and she's still reintroducing Ryan. again, i think i got the memo the past bajillion times.
you know what else i just realized? ryan mentions somewhere along the way, either in the first book or in this book, that danaus thought she was the perfect embodiment of evil because she was both a vampire and controlled the fires of hell or something, and that really makes absolutely no sense. fire has got to be the most purifying element there is, since it's composed of pure energy, and secondly, in the bible, fire is used all over the place by the agents of good. what happened to god and his burning bush? whatever version of the bible danaus has been weaned on, it doesn't sound close to christian.
i will give this 3 stars since i do like the characters so much.. but nothing about this book really merits a 3-star rating, to be honest. the plot was jagged, there were holes all over the place, and almost everyone acts out of character. but then i guess i wouldn't know what their characters are anyway, considering i only really have the first book to base my judgment on--but hey, it was a good book, and i'd rather use that as a guideline to their true characters than this disjointed lump of text. despite all these faults (and boy, that's more than a couple) i still enjoyed revisiting mira and danaus again, depsite danaus's random homicidal bouts. i understand that's probably something mira and danaus can work through in the next book, unless the author contracts amnesia again and decides to take them back to some point where either none of this happened or she'll invent some other version of the events that she's written and that no one has ever read about.
sigh.
okay, i understand i'm being harsh. but that's what happens when you raise my expectations with a good first book and leave me with what's in the second for a follow-up. redeeming qualities? there aren't any yet. what danaus is was blatantly obvious from the first book, so having solved that particular "mystery" is no great feat for me. even what mira is seems blatantly obvious to me, unless the author decides to pull a fast one on me and slap me upside the head with something entirely new--but at this point, i kind of doubt it.
again, i re-sigh.
so disappointed.
well, hopefully, i'll lighten up a bit when the next book hits the shelves, and maybe i'll be able to reach for the next one in good faith by then. that's the best i could hope for right now.
