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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Solid craftsmanship, no real spark, January 7, 2000
This review is from: Competitions (The Blending, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the second Sharon Green book that I've read, the first being the first book in this same series, and I have to say that I find her work rather puzzling. She *definitely* knows how to write a hook. Despite all the flaws in this book, I'm still curious (actually against my own will) about what happens in the next book. However, her writing is curiously flat and the plot is relentlessly repetitive. It was as though she sat down and set herself an exercise titled 'writing a series about magic competitions.' As the title suggests, this book is about competitions. There are multiple and repeated competitions throughout the book. They do not vary (except in character and magical power) and the fact that they do not vary kind of neatly removes anything like dramatic tension. The characters are simple and more or less one dimensional. They've all got some pretty clearly defined emotional handicaps that they're also pretty clearly going to have to get over before they can go on to succeed in the later books. Oh, and the bad guys are (you guessed it) really really bad and spoiled and cruel and awful and stupid. So, the question is, why did I finish it? Why am I probably going to read the next one? The answer is in the plot itself, I think. She neatly incorporates some nice mystery about the set-up and never really gives you the sense of a complete book so you really are left with this annoying sense of wanting to know how the darned thing ends. Like I said, it's a puzzling book.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Decent Read, And Yet...., April 4, 2001
This review is from: Competitions (The Blending, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)
If you've ever read something that had an appalling number of flaws (particularly in characterization and pacing), romances that could come straight out of a bad dime store novel, villains who fit every stereotype you could imagine, repetition galore, flatness abundant... and liked it *anyway*, then you can understand what I mean when I say that I enjoyed this book almost despite itself. Sharon Green really must be a marvelous artist. Her main characters are winsome and intriguing; her magical system, like the society she has built, is fascinating. The ideas behind this particular book are interesting in their own right: the heroes and heroines (as well as villains and villainesses) must each face tests of their elemental gifts that will lead to rich rewards if they win and certain destruction if they fail. All the while, they're keeping an eye out for the machinations of the unscrupulous testing authority. It's a very compelling premise, particularly for readers who enjoy stories involving elemental magic and its practice. It's just a shame that Green has chosen the method she has of presenting her world. While some of the characters' relationships with each other are touching, one pairing seems to have no solid basis for existance and a second had me wanting to throw the book across the room in disgust. (It did get better later, though.) The dialogue is simply regrettable at some points--mostly made so by the one-dimensional nature of the villains... who almost all happen to be noble, and/or the parental figures of the protagonists. I simply cannot believe that everyone except our heroes is evil, ambitious, and by and large essentially *stupid*, but that's what we're expected to swallow. There were also small details that made me sigh; the animal 'friends' seemed like something straight out of Snow White, which at least was fitting with a set of protagonists who are innocent, selfless, beautiful and/or handsome, virtuous, powerful... the list goes on. However, I did enjoy _Competitions_, and have found the series difficult to put down despite its shortcomings. I would tentatively recommend this book and this series to anyone who is fond of the fantasy genre and can put up with the negative aspects mentioned above for the sake of a truly (if puzzlingly) intriguing tale.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable, light reading despite a predictable plot, February 29, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Competitions (The Blending, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)
This book followed the same pattern as the first, making it very predictable for the most part. Also, the squabbling between characters seems almost contrived, as if a plot device to keep them apart, such as you see in badly written romance novels. That said, some of the ideas about the competition were fresh enough to keep me reading and look for more.
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