Tag / remnant

by PerfectlyTolerable

The Beauty of Darkness

*** (3 out of 5)

The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. Pearson

The Remnant Chronicles Book 2

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The Remnant Chronicles:

If you read my reviews of The Kiss of Deception and The Heart of Betrayal you may have gathered that I have a love/hate relationship with this series.  I love Lia but there are so many things that drive me nuts!

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Lets start with the good.  Lia is freakin awesome.  She is independent, strong, smart, and doesn’t take shit from anybody.  When the entire world is conspiring against her she doesn’t back down.  She risks everything to do what is right.  She would make a great role model for any girl.  Especially in today’s world when a lot of heroines put their love life before everything else, Lia is a breath of fresh air.

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While there is a lot of emphasis on the love aspect of the story, the rest of the plot is still very strong.  You could remove the love triangle and it would probably make the book better.  Lia fights for all the different Kingdoms, and she wins the hearts of the inhabitants wherever she goes.  She finds the good in every single place she visits.  You can’t help falling in love with the kingdoms who publicly denounce her and the inhabitants that support her.  Seriously Lia’s whole journey is an amazing story, all by itself.  It is the only reason I kept reading the series.

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Now for the bad: The love triangle

Triangle

I am not completely opposed to love triangles on principal but this one got tiring.  I really liked both men, and wanted them both to be happy.  At one point she makes her decision which I was glad of, but then, of course, circumstances conspired against her and we were right back where we started.  One of the classic tropes of love triangles is the “loser” finding someone else and living happily with them.  This happened here too but it was rushed and weird.  It just didn’t feel right.  It would have been so much better if Lia had made her choice earlier and then we could have seen the other romance bloom properly.

The other issue I had with the book was the ending.  The story dragged on right up until the very end and then it was super rushed.  It was so rushed I couldn’t even figure out what was happening.  I had to re-read a couple parts to figure out what was going on, and then I still didn’t understand.  It was awful.  All this build up is should have been great but it was just confusing.

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So overall this book had some really great parts, but others parts fell short.  I felt more frustrated with the book than anything else.  I didn’t get the closure I needed at the end of the series.  I debated giving the book only two stars, but I did like Lia and her Journey so I feel it deserved three.

 

by PerfectlyTolerable

The Heart of Betrayal

*** (3 out of 5)

The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. Pearson

The Remnant Chronicles Book 2

Betrayal

This is the sequel to The Kiss of Deception.

Urg I wanted to love this book, I really did, but it just didn’t do it for me.  It felt drawn out and got a bit tiring.  I got completely sucked in the first book, but it took me a while to get into this one.  It had sooo much potential yet it was just sort of flat.

I still love Lia.  She is amazingly strong despite all the bad things happening to her.  She does what she needs to survive.  She is resourceful and clever and everything a strong female character should be.  However, I am a little tired of the love triangle (or is it a love square? its kind of blurry where that one is headed)  I realize she needs to play certain games to survive, but does she really have to fall in love with them all?  Just because someone has a troubled past doesn’t excuse their current actions, even if their intent is sincere.

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I could have done with less interactions between Lia and the Komizar.  Or at least it would have been nice if the interactions had more variety.  They were very redundant.

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And what was his deal with obsessing over her hair and clothes?!? Oooooh maybe he is gay and in love with Kaden.  Haha that would be a cool twist.

I would have liked to know more about Rafe and his time as “emissary.”  For the most part you only see him when he is with Lia and that is not very often.  It would have been nice to learn more about who he is and what he thinks.  We did get a lot of insight into Kaden.

I also would have liked to know more about Pauline and her story.  There are only a handful of chapters where you see what she is doing.  I know that her actions will most likely come into play more in the next book, but it would have alleviated some of the monotony of Lia’s story, to see more of Pauline’s.

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This book is better than the first in the aspect that it actually has a conclusion of sorts.  It is still a huge cliffhanger but something big actually happens at the end of the book.  It was a slight improvement, but not enough to overcome all of its other shortcomings.

I am still very much invested in the story and am excited to start the third and final book.  Hopefully it isn’t slow (because there is a LOT that needs to happen).

by PerfectlyTolerable

The Kiss of Deception

**** (4 out of 5)

The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson

Kiss of Deception

NOOOOOO

One of my biggest pet peeves is when an author draws out a story into too many books.  I like when each book in a series has its own story-line that gets resolved at the end of book.  Then all the smaller stories lend to the bigger story.  There are some cliffhangers, but the plot itself is not left half finished.  Does that make sense? Think about Harry Potter.  In The Sorcerer’s Stone Harry recovers the stone.  In The Chamber of Secrets Harry kills the basilisk and saves Ginny.  In The Goblet of Fire the tournament is concluded.  Each book is its own story inside of the bigger picture.

Reading The Kiss of Deception I got completely sucked in.  I couldn’t put it down! But towards the end of the book, I started to get the feeling that there wasn’t enough pages left for everything that needed to happen.

Not Enough Pages

And I was right.  The story didn’t resolve anything.  It felt like the author wrote one really long story and just needed a dramatic place to make the cut between book one and book two.

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But it was still a really good book, and I am dying to find out what happens next.  So after finishing book one I had a mad dash to get the next book.  Of course I finished it at like 1 am so there weren’t a whole lot of options.  (I didn’t want the kindle edition because I got the first one in paperback and I like to read all the books in a series in the same format).  The day after I finished it, I went to Barnes and Noble during my lunch break, but they only had book three. The customer service guy helpfully offered to order it.  It would only take a week or two to come in.  Hells No! I can’t wait that long.  I politely declined and went back to work to order it on Amazon.  With Prime I got free two day shipping so it should arrive today.  In the meantime I am stuck with nothing to read because I don’t want to start a new book in the middle of reading a different series.  I did end up buying the third book from Barnes and Noble so that I won’t have to go through this again.

The only thing that kept me from giving The Kiss of Deception 5 stars was the sudden ending with no conclusion.  Other than that I loved the book.  It is fast paced with plenty of action.  Lots of plot twists and turns. Its amazing.

This book was also a first for me, in that I didn’t know who was who.  I don’t get a lot of firsts anymore so it was really cool and creative.  Most of the chapters are from the point of view of Lia, the runaway princess.  She meets two characters named Kaden and Rafe.  As the reader you know one is a prince and one is an assassin, but you don’t know which is which.  Every once in a while you get a chapter from Kaden or Rafe’s point of view, and other times you get a chapter from the prince’s or the assassin’s point of view.  The Kaden/Rafe chapters are about the characters interactions with Lia, and the prince/assassin chapters are about the characters internal thoughts, and interactions away from Lia.  The reader is left guessing who is who.  I kept flipping back and fourth trying to decide who I thought was which person.

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It was a super fun, unique way to experience the story.  About halfway through the book you do find out who is who.  (The reader finds out when Lia finds out)  After that all the chapters are Lia or Kaden/Rafe.  Pearson did a wonderful job keeping all the interactions/thoughts just vague enough that she didn’t give anything away until the big reveal.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys young adult fantasy.  It is a really great read.  Just be prepared and have the second book ready when you finish!