Thursday 4 June 2015

Everlost Review!

I know I intended to finish The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness first but I wasn't feeling it and decided to finish this series up! If you read my review for the last book (here) then you know I was a little weary of the third installment in this series, so let's get on to it and see if my predictions were true or not!

Synopsis:
Tatiana is stuck in Natatoria in a crumbling kingdom bound to the man she hated with a passion, but things change. Facing a war in her own mind, a constant fluctuation of anger and love Tatiana faces her own truths and sees first hand the deceit and lies that make up the kingdom. Left alone in a kingdom she must decide for herself to do what's easy or to do what's right.

Review:
3 or 3.5/5
Though this book was fun, it didn't have me gripping my phone in a death vice like the last one. I started this book right after I finished the second one and just finished it now. Unlike the previous one, this one didn't hold my attention very well. There's lots of good and not so good things I found with this book so I guess we should sift through that now.

The fear I had expressed in the last review was that we'd go back to under developed characters and a strange point of view. Thankfully I was wrong on the character point so let's all throw a mini dance party there! WOO! Tatchi is the character that throughout the series you know what she wants and what she's like. She's a mermaid who wants to live like a human, she wants choices, she wants to empower the female Mers and control her own destiny. Through Ash's eyes we learned a lot about Tatchi, so when this one came in her point of view it wasn't nearly as startling as I expected it to be. Points for Pandos.

The downfall was how achingly annoying Tatchi became. At times I wanted to shake some sense into the girl. I feel like the same points could have been made without it being drawn out for the majority of the book. Her love / hate promised feelings with Azor was giving me whiplash. I understand that the promise makes people act strange but this abusive relationship seemed like a stretch for a character that has always had more backbone than any of the ones before her. I won't go into details cause spoilers but I really don't feel like the extremity of the situation and the duration it was drawn out for fit this character. 

Points for Pandos again with the action, there was stuff happening in this book, albeit there were some faults here and there. If it wasn't a physical fight in this book it was mental. However, there was a slight downfall - the mental side of things didn't seem to have a whole lot of progression. Until towards the end of the book there didn't seem to be any earth shattering realizations here which meant a whole lot of scenarios that were basically the same situation rehashed in as many ways possible. On the other hand the physical fighting was progressing, you could see the reason behind the actions be it. Azor's anger, or his greed, Jacob's loyalty and desires which were changing and progressing through the book which made Tatiana's mental standstill all the more frustrating to me.

Unfortunately it wasn't until the mental game starting progressing that I finally found myself able to engage. After that, things got a lot more interesting, unfortunately this affected how I approached the rating of this read. The start of the book is a three, it was good not great and didn't hold my attention well. Had the ending been attached to a better beginning I might have boosted it to a 4 but it's pulled down and is stuck with a 3.5.

Overall Series:

 Overall I would say this series was enjoyable, and I would definitely recommend it for a younger reader than myself. There's a lot of series and books that can cross the age gap but this one doesn't seem to quite have that yet. If the first and the last books were like the second book and matched in intensity and purpose this would have been a phenomenal series! In the meantime if you want something fun and easy to read this is your find.

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