2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An unfortunate descendent, February 6, 2011
First off, I very much enjoyed the first book and was hoping to see the characters grow more, the fledgling romances flourish, the supporting characters coming into their own, and -- of course -- an epic battle to overthrow the evil king and his mage. Well. All of that happens... It just seems to happen with new characters.
~ Tris is more solemn and brooding. That's pretty much the extent of his personality now. Oh, and he loves Kiara. Deeply and passionately (well, as passionately as Matris Drayke, Lord of Dreariness, can). He may be no simple youth when it comes to magic or statecraft, but it's a regular Romeo & Juliet romance. And, just think, they've known each other for less than six months and they've never spent any time alone! For all that (supposed) depth and passion, however, it's a very sanitary, settled kind of love. And apparently no sexual tension whatsoever -- we all known teens and early 20s have no sex drive, so this is completely believable... right?
~ Kiara has lost most of her spunk. When you see her (which is rare), she's basically worrying about or taking care of Tris, making a (as in one) quippy line, training with Jonmarc, gushing over how much she loves Tris, or being made into a victim that Tris needs to save. She becomes the most boring support character in the book. Tragic.
~ Jonmarc/Vahanian*, again, has become distressingly tame. His wry/sharp humor is still there (occasionally), but he rarely does anything. It's like that whole war between "self-service" and "noble cause" has evaporated entirely -- he has no inner turmoil or resolve now. He's just there. The sharp-tongued jack of all trades has become a bland right-hand man who moons over Carina.
~ Carina... honestly, what the hell. Why even bother establishing strong females if you're just going to turn them into mush when they start having feelings? Carina gets more screen time than Kiara, but her character has been washed out even more. She now becomes flustered at the least little challenge, uncertain in her personal life, and overall vague in personality. Going by presence, you would say she's a main character, but there's not enough personality to really merit that appellation.
~ Ban Soterius* at least is enough in the background that you can excuse his lack of development. The thing that aggravated me the most about Ban's treatment in this book is that you couldn't even believe he and Tris were basically best friends. There was no indication of that other than 1) Tris calling him that once, and 2) Carroway's story about them all frolicking together back in the good old days when Jared was still Jared, but at least not King Jared.
~ Carroway isn't bad. Probably the only character who gets to show up for any length of time who hasn't turned into a completely different person. Granted, he hasn't really developed from that at all either, but at least he was consistently flirtatious, talented, and handsome. Kind of hard to screw that up, now that I think about it.
~ Harrtuck who? Seriously, he's mentioned like 5 times and has basically become "that fighting guy...I think he took up with the mercenaries at some point."
~ Gabriel/Mikhail are basically the same person. They may have different backstories and (angelic-inspired) names, but there is nothing whatsoever that differentiates them here. There are 2 scenes in the book where I could definitively tell you which vayash moru it was, and that's because it's tied directly to their backstories. When it concerned only the present, they were interchangeable.
* Okay, there is a reason why people get called by one name, and there are usually few exceptions. It bugs the hell out of me that the narrator (and some of the characters) call these two men by one name, while the rest of the characters call them by another (oh, and sometimes the characters usually referring to them by the other name will call them by this one too). This is so logically/realistically inconsistent that it distracts me. First name, last name, I don't care. Just have everyone pick a name and stick with it, with exceptions actually being exceptions and not rules. And have the narration use the most frequently used name. If he feels like Soterius/Vahanian to the narrator, he'd probably feel like that to the other characters too.
Examples:
[quote] Tris shrugged. [...] He looked at Vahanian. "How is Jonmarc?"
[quote] She slipped the cloak over Vahanian, who was already asleep. [...] On one hand, she felt relief. [...] Jonmarc was alive.
[quote] A little more than a week later [...] time to see Soterius and Mikhail off [...] "Now that Ban's an outlaw hero [...]" [...] The group was still chuckling at the off-color ballad he'd dedicated to the high points of Soterius's upcoming ride [...]
As for the book as a whole, the pace just felt off. It starts well and ends okay, but the rest of the book seems like you're drifting over the events. You get a high-flying overview, with periodic stops to check in on the characters for a little bit of action. I never really felt how much time passed, since all of the events bled together. There were some really interesting concepts being used, but in the end it felt like there were too many ideas -- the sheer number made it impossible to spend meaningful time on any of them. The character swap was probably the most frustrating thing I've ever encountered. I hope that the original cast made it back in the third book, but I won't know for awhile. This one hasn't really inspired me to rush out and pick it up.
I had high hopes for this series, but now I'm feeling really lukewarm. There were some clear writing issues. The repetition between scenes was getting on my nerves -- I don't need to be reminded 10 pages later that this one thing happened. Actually, repetition in general seemed to be a problem here -- I really hope there are no more Eastmark kicks in the rest of the series, because I think Tris has done enough of them in The Blood King to last a lifetime... It's the only fighting move he knows, apparently. That, and channeling his will through that sword.
In the end, don't hope for any surprises because there aren't any. Everything goes exactly as it should for the good guys, albeit they get a few beatings here and there. It does basically have the feel of a children's book (The prince and his party started off...they did this and this and this, while the bad guys did that. Then there was a skirmish, and everyone lived (mostly) happily ever after. The end!), which is disappointing when you consider the first. Hopefully they get better again, but I'm not getting my hopes up again.
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