Customer Reviews

Inside the Illusion (EverWorld #9)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Finally we hear Senna's side of the whole story, and it's not a pleasant one. Senna's voice.... well, it's completely different. She's arrogent, for one, thinking she can have all of Everworld for her own, and she doesn't care about sending the others home; to her, they are just pawns. But that's the strength of the book. The author has managed to create this voice for the character, an utterly despisable character. And then she makes you feel sorry for her. Senna and the others travel to the Egyptian area of Everworld in this one. Senna sees, for the first time in ten years, her mother. She has lived all this time with her father, his wife (who hates Senna since she's a product of her husband's affair) and his other daughter, Senna's half-sister April, who doesn't try to disguise her hatred of her. Senna's mother makes excuses about abandoning her and then tries to sell her out. It was nearly heartbreaking. I hate Senna. And I feel sorry for her.

This book was a total surprise to me.I never expected Senna to be the narrator of one of the books.If you have read the animorphs books you'll know that Applegate tends to use the same style of writing over and over like as she also has in the everworld series but this one was totally different.Now that Senna tells her story it makes Christopher's,David's,April's,and Jalil's stories alot easier to understand.This book was by far the best in the series.Senna's lust for power makes it even better.Although I despise Senna Applegate almost made me feel sorry for her.Almost.This was a great book and I can't wait to read the next one.

First and foremost, I really enjoyed this book. I bought it a few weeks ago and just picked it up yesterday to read, but I just couldn't stop! Today, I'm still reeling over the plot and viewpoint and everything I learned about the characters. Here's a bit of my opinion:

With this being the first book from Senna's point of view, I found it to be new and intriguing. I was engrossed by the twisted notions created in Senna's mind, but impressed at the same time. I hated her with a passion, but was drawn to her all the same. Her power was admirable, yet her hunger for it was detestable. In a way, I found that I couldn't really blame her, in that she was never loved. I blame her father (also April's) because he was a cheating jerk who made a mistake and never owned up to the responsibility. It makes me agree with the Amazons somewhat about the male race being weaker, but we won't go into that. By going into Senna's mind, we all get to see how the storyline of April, Jalil, Christopher, and David being dragged into Everworld came about.

I also lusted for the power Senna contained. It was described so vividly, that I almost felt like I could reach out and draw the power into myself. The mixture of suspense, drama, realism, fantasy and horror all intertwined to create a wonderful story of the twisted human mind and the horrid realities of mankind.

This book is one of the best so far. You get to see this book through Senna a witch that brought 4 other people to Everworld. In this book the five of them, David, April, Christopher, Jalil, and Senna herself are in search of Senna's mother a powerful witch that may help them save Everworld and get them home. They incounter the god of the Alligators and travel to the Egyptian part of Everworld in search of Senna's mother. I give this book 5 stars because out of the nine books that are out so far this one and number one are my favorites.

Oh the agony! I cannot believe myself. I hate getting into series like these where all the books arent out... and then I get so into them and have to wait months for the next one to be available! Grrr... anyways, about the book. It was wonderful, Senna's plan is revealed of how she is going about taking over Everworld, and I completely unexpected it. But there are some things in the book that dont quite add up, well i dont want to give anything away, so read it for yourself!

If someone asked me what I thought of Senna after reading the first book, i would say i thought she was a mysterious girl. After the second book I would have said a powerful witch with her own plans. After the third and fourth I'd say a mean person who doesn't care about other people and is just trying to do her own thing. But now after this, the ninth book, I would call her a jerk, a psychopath or a power hungry killer. In this new book you finally find out what Senna is up to, and her plans ain't pretty. I love how K.A. Applegate chose to take a new turn with the books and had Senna narrate number 9. It's interesting and the best one yet, even though I now hate Senna. (She also wants to kill my favorite charectar, errg!).

Now this was a book I didn't want to put down! If you've read all or even some of the previous ones, this book is must. Finally, some of the mysteries of Everworld begin to unravel, as Senna finally explains her place in everthing...and everyone else's. As the five kids make their way into Egypt, hoping to find Senna's mother, instead they're captured by a large group of Amazons who have conquered the land... I won't say anything else to avoid spoiling the story, buy truly, this one is the best so far. Senna isn't a character I expected to hear from, but somehow, getting inside her twisted head for the first time, it was hard not to identify with her, and sympathize with her at least a bit. Prior to this book, I despised Senna, but now she just might be my favorite. Also, the Amazons as well were simply above cool! Nothing like some good strong females to make a story more exciting. Anyway, this book was great, and I recommend it to anyone who's been following the series. These books don't stand well on their own, and you'd be hopelessly lost otherwise.

At last, we get to know the real Senna. This book was more psychological than adventure, since the whole book is basically Senna talking about her past, her future plans, and why she is the way she is (which is why this book is worth a read). This series still keeps going well.

Every one of the EverWorld books is better than the previous one. I hope this series never ends because I like it so much. I have never been so intrigued and so pulled in my a book and especially a series of books. In this one you get inside Senna's head and as much as I want her to be good, that ain't happening. Senns is selfish but i truly feel sorry for her. Can't wait for book number 10. I just wish they would release more books at a time. I can't wait a month or two for the next chapter in this story.

This is, hands down, the best book in the entire Everworld series, my absolute favorite of them all. Put quite simply, this book is awesome overload.

I was very excited to read this book, chiefly because it was narrated by none other than Senna Wales, my favorite character in the entire cast by a thousand light years. I was not disappointed. This book exceeded my hopes.

Everworld is still not a perfect series, and this book doesn't quite bring it up to five star levels, but it is unquestionable that it improves on all the previous books by a wide margin in just about every possible way.

Senna narrates as the group continues on their journey, and at intervals along the way, she remembers things from her past. We finally see Senna's origins, how she ended up with the family of April, the half-sister who hated her, what her parents' names were, how she feels about the rest of the group, what her plans are, how her powers work, and loads of other good stuff.

For someone who has been begging, praying, hoping for deeper character introspection and history since I first read, "Search for Senna" this was a treasure chest of stark, glittering awesomeness. Senna's childhood stories were simultaneously interesting, inquisitive, hilarious, thoughtful, sorrowful, and loaded with character development. Senna's calculating and intelligent personality was a much needed relief from David's idealistic hero fantasies, Christopher's acidic and prejudiced "wit", April's self-righteous spiels, and Jalil's hardcore skepticism.

I'd been fascinated with Senna since I first heard about this series. I was greatly looking forward to reading this book. I had expected Senna to be a ten. What I got was an eleven. She had the most fascinating character, the most history and development, the most unique voice, the best personality, and quite frankly, she dominated this book. She was the center of my attention back when her personality was mostly in the dark. Now that her psyche is actually explored, she makes the rest of the cast look like cardboard cut-outs.

Senna Wales has to be one of the most cunning characters I've ever read about; she's the kind of magnificent, scheming chessmaster who ranks right up there with Petyr Baelish, David Xanatos, and others of their ilk. Her manipulations ran deeper than even I thought, her mastery and exploitation of human nature almost unbelievable, her cleverness and ability to adapt off the charts. She is called the witch who binds the other characters together for darn good reason!

At the same time, I felt a very strong sympathy for her, almost sorrow. Her life story was very sad, very lonely, very cold. It was one of the most effective examples of a sympathetic villain/anti-heroine I've seen for a long while in fiction. After this book, I can say for sure that Senna Wales has secured a place as one of my all-time favorite characters in literature.

The next best part about this book has to be the climax. "Inside the Illusion" had undoubtedly the best finish of any Everworld book. Far from an anticlimax or a hastily scrapped together series of events, the finish here was absolutely amazing. Merlin showed up again, and the ensuing confrontation was a genius blend of Merlin's power and prestige, Senna's guile and improvisation, an absolutely epic battle, and the rage of gods and the unleashing of modern weapons thrown in for good measure. I kind of wish there could have been a little more falling action and closure, but it was still much, much better than any previous Everworld climax.

The best scenes, besides the climax, have to be the mind games Senna plays on Jalil and April with her magic. She has a malicious sense of revenge and humor, mixed with a great understanding of the human psyche. These scenes were wonderful and terrible and believable and awesome all at once.

When I was reading this over, I noticed something. The first word in this book is "I" and the last word is "me." It's narrated from Senna's first person perspective. Someone has a bit of an ego, yes indeed.

Inside the Illusion is an absolutely marvelous book, a masterpiece by Everworld standards, and still very good even by those of the literature I normally read. If you can make it through the generally mediocre and poorly realized saga with occasion gems that is Everworld to get this far, you will not be disappointed. This read was powerfully inspiring and provided priceless insight into the mind of one of my favorite characters of all time. This is the one that makes the whole journey, all the disappointments and sorrow over what might have been and drug-like addictions, all worth it.