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dtaylorbooks's review
4.0
ALWAYS FOREVER redeemed AGE OF MISRULE in my eyes, making me love the series all over again by the time I was done with it. By the time this particular section of the story starts everyone’s come to grips with where they need to be in all of this and what their roles are. Of course there was still some introspection and pondering meanings and all of that but the plot took its hold back and gave me a damn good story to latch on to and keep reading until the very end.
The only thing that really annoyed me was how long it took me to read. The font is smaller than normal and the margins are smaller. I ended up timing myself and I was averaging about 18 minutes per 10 pages. I normally read between 50 and 120 pages per hour depending on the same formatting and general interest in the book. So to only being able to read little more than 30 pages an hour but still really liking what I was reading really chapped my ass. That’s on me but it rubbed me the wrong way about the book. And they are all like this, despite how much I liked this one and book 1. They’re just slow, dense reads. But when I like them, damn I like them.
Because everyone’s finally come to terms with their places in the greater game of humanity everyone’s finally come into their characters and I got to see who they really were. Church effectively became a broken messiah, becoming the spearhead of the fight. He did it because it was his destiny. There was a little bucking and fighting but he finally came to trust it all and it always played out in the end. Ruth finally embraced her powers and became the powerful nature warrior she was tasked with being. It wasn’t without its consequences but she grabbed that power by the balls and made it her bitch. Shavi showed the least change, only because he accepted his path long before the others. Veitch teetered on acceptance and completely breaking down. His emotions swung wildly in ALWAYS FOREVER and he was the character that became the most unstable as the story went on. He seemed to fight back against what was happening while at the same time being accepting of it. Tom . . . Tom finally let the human in him show and it was heartbreaking. As for Laura, she finally got over her crap. And oh my god what a wonderful character she became. Seriously. She really is an awesome, snarky, strong character when she isn’t being an abhorrent bitch. That piece of herself she left behind in book 2 and good riddance I say to that.
If you actually thought any character was lost at the end of book 2 then you weren’t paying attention and therefore I don’t care if I just spoiled things for you. Wake up. It has to be the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons for them to have any chance of saving the world. Get on board the Duh train here, okay?
I wish a little more time was spent with the fairies once the greater scheme was revealed (and I won’t spoil this one, I’m not ALL black heart). There was a lot of fairy interaction up until that point and then it just became little more than passing mentions so when the conflict came to being resolved it was rather anticlimactic in regard to that subplot. It just felt rather ‘meh, done, move on’ to me. I hope there’s more of them in the companion novels (at least they look like companion novels and not technical sequels). There’s a war going on there between the two fairy factions and I want more of it. I’m greedy. What can I say?
The darkness was actually kept to a minimum in this book, and rightly so. Time to end it all, right? Enough of the torture and pain and suffering and time to send the bastards back to hell, as Veitch would say. There was a real sense of accomplishment and hope in this book that the other two didn’t have, for obvious reasons. It had its moments but the overwhelming feeling was positive. Even though the ending wasn’t entirely upbeat, there was near-total resolution and a sense of calm over the land at last. And it wasn’t just the ending; it was the entire story. A now or never feeling. Shit or get off the pot, if you will. It had a very different feel from the other books but one that I could appreciate. The foreboding was gone. Most of the apprehension was gone. It’s just do or die and now lets get this over with.
ALWAYS FOREVER was a great, if not sad, ending to this trilogy. Everyone finally settled into being themselves and the world stopped being so dark. Finally the lights started coming back on. Despite my slowness in reading these books, I do look forward to the companion stories because Chadbourn left this book off in a rather interesting place. It plays with time travel which I have an inherent issue with because, really, no matter how it’s described it’ll always be nonsensical. But I liked the peek it gave me and I hope to have a full look at it eventually.
4
The only thing that really annoyed me was how long it took me to read. The font is smaller than normal and the margins are smaller. I ended up timing myself and I was averaging about 18 minutes per 10 pages. I normally read between 50 and 120 pages per hour depending on the same formatting and general interest in the book. So to only being able to read little more than 30 pages an hour but still really liking what I was reading really chapped my ass. That’s on me but it rubbed me the wrong way about the book. And they are all like this, despite how much I liked this one and book 1. They’re just slow, dense reads. But when I like them, damn I like them.
Because everyone’s finally come to terms with their places in the greater game of humanity everyone’s finally come into their characters and I got to see who they really were. Church effectively became a broken messiah, becoming the spearhead of the fight. He did it because it was his destiny. There was a little bucking and fighting but he finally came to trust it all and it always played out in the end. Ruth finally embraced her powers and became the powerful nature warrior she was tasked with being. It wasn’t without its consequences but she grabbed that power by the balls and made it her bitch. Shavi showed the least change, only because he accepted his path long before the others. Veitch teetered on acceptance and completely breaking down. His emotions swung wildly in ALWAYS FOREVER and he was the character that became the most unstable as the story went on. He seemed to fight back against what was happening while at the same time being accepting of it. Tom . . . Tom finally let the human in him show and it was heartbreaking. As for Laura, she finally got over her crap. And oh my god what a wonderful character she became. Seriously. She really is an awesome, snarky, strong character when she isn’t being an abhorrent bitch. That piece of herself she left behind in book 2 and good riddance I say to that.
If you actually thought any character was lost at the end of book 2 then you weren’t paying attention and therefore I don’t care if I just spoiled things for you. Wake up. It has to be the five Brothers and Sisters of Dragons for them to have any chance of saving the world. Get on board the Duh train here, okay?
I wish a little more time was spent with the fairies once the greater scheme was revealed (and I won’t spoil this one, I’m not ALL black heart). There was a lot of fairy interaction up until that point and then it just became little more than passing mentions so when the conflict came to being resolved it was rather anticlimactic in regard to that subplot. It just felt rather ‘meh, done, move on’ to me. I hope there’s more of them in the companion novels (at least they look like companion novels and not technical sequels). There’s a war going on there between the two fairy factions and I want more of it. I’m greedy. What can I say?
The darkness was actually kept to a minimum in this book, and rightly so. Time to end it all, right? Enough of the torture and pain and suffering and time to send the bastards back to hell, as Veitch would say. There was a real sense of accomplishment and hope in this book that the other two didn’t have, for obvious reasons. It had its moments but the overwhelming feeling was positive. Even though the ending wasn’t entirely upbeat, there was near-total resolution and a sense of calm over the land at last. And it wasn’t just the ending; it was the entire story. A now or never feeling. Shit or get off the pot, if you will. It had a very different feel from the other books but one that I could appreciate. The foreboding was gone. Most of the apprehension was gone. It’s just do or die and now lets get this over with.
ALWAYS FOREVER was a great, if not sad, ending to this trilogy. Everyone finally settled into being themselves and the world stopped being so dark. Finally the lights started coming back on. Despite my slowness in reading these books, I do look forward to the companion stories because Chadbourn left this book off in a rather interesting place. It plays with time travel which I have an inherent issue with because, really, no matter how it’s described it’ll always be nonsensical. But I liked the peek it gave me and I hope to have a full look at it eventually.
4
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