Hello everyone! Happy Friday!
This week has been a bit off for me, since I missed on my Monday review because I didn't read at all during the weekend due to my co-worker's wedding, recovery after it and massive book hangover after reading Ruin & Rising.
Finally I decided to read one of my precious ARCs I got approved on Edelweiss by HarperTeen and I chose the final book in yet another trilogy that ends this year as my Friday Reads this week! It is also part of two of my challenges, the 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge and the 2014 Book Blogger Summer Reading Program!
Strange and Ever After by Susan Dennard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I got approved for Strange And Ever After by Harper on Edelweiss I was not only surprised but also it totally made my week! So when I was trying to shake my latest massive book hangover, I decided that reading this one a little earlier than planned was to be the little treat to shake my book hangover.
It might have not been such a good choice. And no, I'm not saying that cause the book wasn't good or captivating. No, I'm just afraid this one is also gonna give me yet another emotional book hangover!
As the final book in the trilogy, I might end up talking about something that might be a spoiler for the previous two books, but I will try my best to keep this review as completely spoiler free as possible.
Strange and Ever After stars right where A Darkness Strange and Lovely ended. With Eleanor and the Spirit Hunters having more reason than ever to go after Marcus and try to finally defeat him. They go from Paris to Marseille and there to Egypt, looking for a way to get a step before Marcus and get the edge they need to stop him.
Eleanor changed a lot during the course of the second book, and even though I found myself wanting to scold her quite often, it was her road to walk and her choices to make. Eleanor is a flawed character, she doesn't make the best choices ever and she lets her emotions rule her choices most of the time, but she's a fighter, she's insanely loyal to her friends and she is not a quitter. Even if there were occasions that I wondered how could she be so thick and not stop and think for a moment, Eleanor had a lot of character development, going from being controlled by her magic and choosing the easiest way to learning how to keep going after tough choices and how to fulfill her potential.
Daniel, Oliver, Joseph, Jie, Allison and Marcus were more than just secondary characters. All of them had their time to shine and their time to grow, to progress and to move the plot along. They were all important to Eleanor in one way or another, and they all helped her realize who she is and what she wants to do and what choices she wanted to make.
For a while there I feared a love triangle was brewing and I was quite irritated thinking that it'd happen, thankfully it was just an unfounded suspicion. The romance still has a place in this book, punctuating how important it is to have something else to fight for than just revenge and how having a future to look forward to will give you strength to go on against some really bad odds.
The book was full of action and even if the pacing faltered a little bit on a few occasions, with some down time and preparations in the middle of the fighting and chasing that sometimes felt a bit uneven, it never stopped having me intrigued and captivated by what was going on. With humour and banter and the introduction of a slightly different variant of Egyptian mythology from the one we know, even the slower passages weren't boring.
The ending has left me quite emotionally wrenched and I won't say much for fear of spoiling something. Just have tissues ready cause I was ugly crying for a while there.
A very good final book for a trilogy that has a great mix of paranormal and magic with historical fiction (with a few dashes of steampunk) and well deserving of 4 to 4.5 stars.
View all my reviews
This week has been a bit off for me, since I missed on my Monday review because I didn't read at all during the weekend due to my co-worker's wedding, recovery after it and massive book hangover after reading Ruin & Rising.
Finally I decided to read one of my precious ARCs I got approved on Edelweiss by HarperTeen and I chose the final book in yet another trilogy that ends this year as my Friday Reads this week! It is also part of two of my challenges, the 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge and the 2014 Book Blogger Summer Reading Program!
Strange and Ever After by Susan DennardMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I got approved for Strange And Ever After by Harper on Edelweiss I was not only surprised but also it totally made my week! So when I was trying to shake my latest massive book hangover, I decided that reading this one a little earlier than planned was to be the little treat to shake my book hangover.
It might have not been such a good choice. And no, I'm not saying that cause the book wasn't good or captivating. No, I'm just afraid this one is also gonna give me yet another emotional book hangover!
As the final book in the trilogy, I might end up talking about something that might be a spoiler for the previous two books, but I will try my best to keep this review as completely spoiler free as possible.
Strange and Ever After stars right where A Darkness Strange and Lovely ended. With Eleanor and the Spirit Hunters having more reason than ever to go after Marcus and try to finally defeat him. They go from Paris to Marseille and there to Egypt, looking for a way to get a step before Marcus and get the edge they need to stop him.
Eleanor changed a lot during the course of the second book, and even though I found myself wanting to scold her quite often, it was her road to walk and her choices to make. Eleanor is a flawed character, she doesn't make the best choices ever and she lets her emotions rule her choices most of the time, but she's a fighter, she's insanely loyal to her friends and she is not a quitter. Even if there were occasions that I wondered how could she be so thick and not stop and think for a moment, Eleanor had a lot of character development, going from being controlled by her magic and choosing the easiest way to learning how to keep going after tough choices and how to fulfill her potential.
Daniel, Oliver, Joseph, Jie, Allison and Marcus were more than just secondary characters. All of them had their time to shine and their time to grow, to progress and to move the plot along. They were all important to Eleanor in one way or another, and they all helped her realize who she is and what she wants to do and what choices she wanted to make.
For a while there I feared a love triangle was brewing and I was quite irritated thinking that it'd happen, thankfully it was just an unfounded suspicion. The romance still has a place in this book, punctuating how important it is to have something else to fight for than just revenge and how having a future to look forward to will give you strength to go on against some really bad odds.
The book was full of action and even if the pacing faltered a little bit on a few occasions, with some down time and preparations in the middle of the fighting and chasing that sometimes felt a bit uneven, it never stopped having me intrigued and captivated by what was going on. With humour and banter and the introduction of a slightly different variant of Egyptian mythology from the one we know, even the slower passages weren't boring.
The ending has left me quite emotionally wrenched and I won't say much for fear of spoiling something. Just have tissues ready cause I was ugly crying for a while there.
A very good final book for a trilogy that has a great mix of paranormal and magic with historical fiction (with a few dashes of steampunk) and well deserving of 4 to 4.5 stars.
View all my reviews
