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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing, but with a few problems - 3.5/5, April 28, 2009
When I heard that Fragile Eternity would be a true sequel to Wicked Lovely (Ink is an independent book), I was incredibly excited to get lost in Keenen, Aislinn, Donia and Seth again. I did, of course. All four characters are real and interesting and I loved the dizzy and unpredictable quality of their odd, intense love square. Having Keenan and Aislinn love each other, like most other faery stories would have done, would have solved everything, but Marr clearly didn't want to give anyone any easy answers. That's good. It was challenging and kept me reading. I also really like how Marr gave the concept of eternity a lot of weight. Unlike something like Breaking Dawn that painted it as a sort of never-ending fairy tale, Marr showed the real sorrow behind the possibility of living forever. FOREVER. There are a few things though that keep me from giving the book as high a rating as I want. First, Marr's prose is usually very lovely. I love her striking visuals. But she tells way too much. Most of the time, writers learn that showing how people feel, showing their motivations is much more effective than simply telling the readers. Marr however chooses to simply tell these things through inner exposition far too much and it feels like I'm being dictated to. What's worse is that she repeats them way too much. So four or five times in two chapters I might be told that Aislinn is afraid of outliving Seth and Gran, or that Keenan loves Donia but needs Aislinn to love him for such and such reasons. It makes me feel like I'm being constantly bashed over the head with the obvious hammer. Like I'm not trusted to have the intelligence to be able to understand what's going on without constant reminders. The repetitions also extend to simple ideas. Like being told over and over again that Bananach is crazy and likes war. After a while I got so annoyed that Bananach lost her edge, even though she was supposed to scare the crap about of me. Speaking of Bananach, I didn't feel like she really delivered on all the (telling not showing) hype. Characters said constantly that she was this scary, psychotic person, calling her War and the like, but really all she did was get into a couple of small fights and show people lots of freaky illusions. Until she does something *really* bad - like lay waste to an entire town or slaughter everyone in Aislinn's high school - something *real* and truly horrific, I'm not going to take her seriously. She's War after all. Why wasn't there more of it? In fact, in that same vein, the book didn't really feel like it had a resolution. I suppose I can see it if I take Aislinn and Seth's conversation towards the end as the climax, but it didn't really seem like one at all. More like a tiny peak and then everything was left hanging. I understand that the book is probably meant to set the stage for the next direct sequel to the story of these particular characters, but the middle book of a series still needs to have a story arc and a kind of resolution to that arc even while the major conflict of the series is still unsolved. Catharsis is sacrificed when one reads a book that's purely 'lead up'. Still, it's really easy to get lost in Marr's world, to feel their frustrations and care about what happens to them. I definitely have no qualms with continuing this series. I just hope it has less problems.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as the first two, June 5, 2009
FRAGILE ETERNITY is the third book in the WICKED LOVELY series, and the second that uses the same protagonists from book one-- Ash, Donia and Keenan-- with the addition two new narrators-- Seth and Sorcha. It picks up the narrative of the four faerie courts where INK EXCHANGE left off, but unlike the first two books, FE cannot be read as a stand-alone. It is very a much an in-between book, relying heavily on information from the first two books, and leading up to an appallingly unresolved cliff-hanger at the end. The message is clear: if you want to find out what happens you're going to have to wait for book four, which goes back to being told by different narrators. We won't actually get these characters' takes again until book 5. I might have had more patience for this if I hadn't already put up with it so often for HARRY POTTER and ERAGON, but as it was I left FRAGILE ETERNITY feeling unfulfilled. That said, Melissa Marr's story continues to be compelling. If it weren't for the awful ending I might have given it four stars. The character development continues to progress in new and unexpected ways as the courts struggle to establish a balance of power, and as Bananach (the harbringer of chaos) brings war ever closer. The love-quadrangle between Aislinn, Seth, Keenan and Donia is a bit trite, and some of the developments are predictable. Nial (King of the Dark Court), Bananach, and now Sorcha (Queen of the High Court) provided the real interest in this story for me. In fact, Sorcha's addition as a narrator was one of the best parts of this book, if only because you can just see all the potential for future plot developments that she brings to the table. I also can't wait to see how Marr resolves (or doesn't?) the tremendous tension that continues to build between the courts in this novel. For faerie enthusiasts, the addition of quite a bit of mythologically-grounded detail adds a nice touch. All in all this is not Marr's finest, but if you can get past the cliff-hangers and the complicated love-triangle there is some real meat in here. And on the plus side, all the set-up that happens in this book is bound to result in fireworks in books 4 and 5, so don't write this series off yet. I think Marr's still got some trump cards up her sleeve...
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28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Long winded with NO ending...., April 26, 2009
I'm going against the tide here, but this was not one of my favorites. I enjoyed the first two, and actually looked forward to the last. Suffice it to say that by the end I was skipping LONG sections trying to get to the point. Most of this book was people prattling on and on about a war that doesn't appear to be happening any time soon. It became tedious and boring hearing over and over that war was about to happen. This wouldn't have been so bad if the last book hadn't been filled with the exact same things! She needs to either start the war or stop talking about it. Also, another issue i had was the love rectangle that was going on throughout the story. It seemed like the majority of the book was spent with everyone pining after one another. Ash is miserable and whiny all the time, crying at the drop of a hat. I understand that she loves Seth, but come on! She's only 17 and dated him for a couple of months! I found myself hoping that someone was going to kill him so that we could move on from that annoying relationship. At least with him dead she can move on to more interesting topics, like the ever brewing war that is on the horizon. Alright, I'm not ruining anything here, but there wasn't an ending. There wasn't. The book just stopped with no conclusion. I'm a little peeved about that. I really don't want to read the next book, if it's going to be more of the same whiny characters and no action, but i still want to know what's going to happen. If you are dying to know what happens, they by all means get this book from the library or a friend, but it isn't worth paying for it. Let's just say that NOTHING really happens in the LONG 400 pages. People whine and cry, faeries dance, Seth broods, Ash cries (A LOT, she is quite a pushover in this novel) Keenan sulks and Donia gets a back bone. Other than that, not much more. I kept waiting for the climax that didn't happen. I was disappointed and won't be buying any more books from Melissa Marr in the near future.
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