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jinny89's review
1.0
Where do I even begin?
I was originally super excited to read this book. There’s many positive reviews of it on Goodreads, and it had a very intriguing synopsis — Sasha, our main character, wants to know who murdered her father and thinks joining the cult, the Ravens, will bring her answers.
What she finds out instead is that she is Anabo, a descendant of Eve’s daughter (as in, Adam and Eve), and the Ravens try to kill her for it. The Ravens are working for Eryx, who is worse than Lucifer the Devil; Eryx is trying to use his recruited souls to power himself into overtaking Hell and Heaven. Sasha is saved, however, by Jax, who is a Son of Hell and is looking for his Anabo, his soulmate, who could lead him to a chance to be in Heaven.
This book is probably going to be popular amongst those who enjoy romances between super hot paranormal male leads and she-doesn’t-know-she’s-beautiful-and-special female leads, who, for one reason or another, are in angst for much of the story because they cannot be together. If you like that kind of story, you’ll love this — but The Mephisto Covenant was not my cup of tea at all, was not what I expected.
The story flowed awkwardly, was simply bizarre at times and the bit about finding out who murdered Sasha's father was quickly resolved and thrown out the window after the first dozen pages. A majority of the scenes and dialogue are question-answer sessions between Sasha and the other characters, who dump a ton of background information on her (and the reader). And then there’s the strangeness of this Eyrx character who is more evil than Lucifer. Seriously, Lucifer and God are actually kind of working together as partners in this book, to bring down Eyrx who is the real kingpin of evil. I found that really hard to accept. Not that I’m religious or anything. It’s just the idea that the Devil himself is less evil than Eyrx doesn’t make sense to me.
On a similar note, Eryx isn’t even aware of Sasha’s existence for the vast majority of the novel, so I didn’t feel like there was much tension in the story. The stakes didn’t feel that high to me. Most of the story consisted of the characters worrying that Eyrx would discover Sasha the Anabo, and trying to keep Sasha safe from the enemy who doesn’t even know she exists yet.
However, the main focus of this story is the angsty romance between Sasha and Jax, which annoyed me way more than I found romantic. In fact, I don’t think any part of their relationship was romantic at all. There was insta-love, creepy-obsessive love and it was kind of shallow that all they ever talked about was how hot each other was. And there was a lot of focus on sex. Sex, sex, sex. All the characters, not just Sasha and Jax, but especially Sasha and Jax. It was drilled into my head how dangerous it would be if they had sex, and how Jax was so obsessed with seeing her naked. There was also a cliche ‘I almost got raped but my soulmate rescued me before it happened’ scene that I’ve read in a dozen YA novels now.
Then there’s the characters themselves, mainly Sasha and Jax. Jax was an overly protective, overly jealous, bordering-on-obsessive kind of boyfriend. Sasha spent most of her time crying in this novel, or feeling like she’s about to cry — sometimes over the silliest things, like getting a new laptop. I just wanted to reach into the pages, give the girl a good shake by the shoulders and exclaim, “Get a grip on yourself!”
I have an entire page of notes I scribbled down while reading this book, but I won’t get into them all. I can see this book being quite popular because I know there is an audience for stories like this, but this really wasn’t for me at all.
(Review originally posted at http://skyink.net).
I was originally super excited to read this book. There’s many positive reviews of it on Goodreads, and it had a very intriguing synopsis — Sasha, our main character, wants to know who murdered her father and thinks joining the cult, the Ravens, will bring her answers.
What she finds out instead is that she is Anabo, a descendant of Eve’s daughter (as in, Adam and Eve), and the Ravens try to kill her for it. The Ravens are working for Eryx, who is worse than Lucifer the Devil; Eryx is trying to use his recruited souls to power himself into overtaking Hell and Heaven. Sasha is saved, however, by Jax, who is a Son of Hell and is looking for his Anabo, his soulmate, who could lead him to a chance to be in Heaven.
This book is probably going to be popular amongst those who enjoy romances between super hot paranormal male leads and she-doesn’t-know-she’s-beautiful-and-special female leads, who, for one reason or another, are in angst for much of the story because they cannot be together. If you like that kind of story, you’ll love this — but The Mephisto Covenant was not my cup of tea at all, was not what I expected.
The story flowed awkwardly, was simply bizarre at times and the bit about finding out who murdered Sasha's father was quickly resolved and thrown out the window after the first dozen pages. A majority of the scenes and dialogue are question-answer sessions between Sasha and the other characters, who dump a ton of background information on her (and the reader). And then there’s the strangeness of this Eyrx character who is more evil than Lucifer. Seriously, Lucifer and God are actually kind of working together as partners in this book, to bring down Eyrx who is the real kingpin of evil. I found that really hard to accept. Not that I’m religious or anything. It’s just the idea that the Devil himself is less evil than Eyrx doesn’t make sense to me.
On a similar note, Eryx isn’t even aware of Sasha’s existence for the vast majority of the novel, so I didn’t feel like there was much tension in the story. The stakes didn’t feel that high to me. Most of the story consisted of the characters worrying that Eyrx would discover Sasha the Anabo, and trying to keep Sasha safe from the enemy who doesn’t even know she exists yet.
However, the main focus of this story is the angsty romance between Sasha and Jax, which annoyed me way more than I found romantic. In fact, I don’t think any part of their relationship was romantic at all. There was insta-love, creepy-obsessive love and it was kind of shallow that all they ever talked about was how hot each other was. And there was a lot of focus on sex. Sex, sex, sex. All the characters, not just Sasha and Jax, but especially Sasha and Jax. It was drilled into my head how dangerous it would be if they had sex, and how Jax was so obsessed with seeing her naked. There was also a cliche ‘I almost got raped but my soulmate rescued me before it happened’ scene that I’ve read in a dozen YA novels now.
Then there’s the characters themselves, mainly Sasha and Jax. Jax was an overly protective, overly jealous, bordering-on-obsessive kind of boyfriend. Sasha spent most of her time crying in this novel, or feeling like she’s about to cry — sometimes over the silliest things, like getting a new laptop. I just wanted to reach into the pages, give the girl a good shake by the shoulders and exclaim, “Get a grip on yourself!”
I have an entire page of notes I scribbled down while reading this book, but I won’t get into them all. I can see this book being quite popular because I know there is an audience for stories like this, but this really wasn’t for me at all.
(Review originally posted at http://skyink.net).
jscarpa14's review
4.0
RECEIVED FROM: Net Galley for Review
***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***
Sasha Annenkova is a seventeen year old Anabo, a descendent of Aurora, the child of Adam and Eve before original sin. She has no idea what she is, and no clue that she doesn’t experience emotions like jealously, greed, rage and hate like normal human beings. She’s just not made to have thoughts like that cross her mind. She discovers what she is the hard way, when she’s almost stoned to death by the Ravens, a secret group in her school who has forsaken God and worship a son of hell named Eryx. The only thing that prevent Sasha from facing a horrible death in the opening scene is Ajax DeKyanos and his brothers, the Mephisto – children of an Anabo and Mephistopheles, a fallen angel who collects the souls of hell for Lucifer.
Jax and his brothers also happen to be Eryx’s younger brothers, the difference between the siblings, Eryx wants to rule hell and take from humanity the free will that allows them the chance at Heaven, Jax and the rest of the brothers, want to stop him and want redemption. God gave the boys, who never should have been born, one chance at redemption. Each would find an Anabo destined for them and if that Anabo chose to love them and they to love her in return then when the world ended they would have a chance to enter Heaven. However, in return for that chance they must collect the lost souls stolen by Eryx and prevent him from taking Hell from Lucifer who at least gave humans the free will to chose to live a life either worthy of Heaven or Hell before taking their soul to Hell’s fiery depths. And even once they find their Anabo they must live a life worthy of entrance to Heaven’s gates if they expect to be admitted.
When Jax catches Sasha’s scent, he knows she’s meant for him and him alone. After having lived as an eighteen year old son of Hell for almost a thousand years he jumps at the chance at redemption offered in Sasha. But will she choose him over all the other safe guys living in the world? Worse when a set of circumstances leave Sasha living in the same house as two of Eryx’s followers can he protect her long enough to prove to her he’s worth it or will Eryx steal his chance of redemption too?
I know that’s kind of a long summary, but it barely touches on the plot, there’s so much set up to even understand the idea of the plot that without that background the plot itself is hard to explain. I’m going to do this review a little different than most. I want to start by discussing my concerns with this book rather than positives or negatives.
While I’m sure upon its release the publisher will place this book in a genre, the way the book is written it kind of falls between genres encompassing aspects of both but aspect that won’t appeal to all readers of either genre. For the most part this has a young adult paranormal romance set up. However toward the end of the book it does include one slightly graphic sex scene. The scene is written more like what you’d see in an adult paranormal romance novel. While it didn’t bother me, I think parents of teens will be concerned about the detail in this scene and I expect to see the book taking a lot of flack about the scene from the young adult crowd. On the flip side of that a seventeen year old heroine is not going to appeal to a lot of romance readers. While the sex scene would probably appeal to them, the age of the heroine might discourage them from picking up the book. I know there’s mention of sex in lots of young adult novels, but it’s usually more like a sentence or two making it clear the act took place, rather than description of the actual act. This is more like the description you’d find in an adult romance novel. It’s not dirty really, it’s not like she’s talking about teens hanging from chandeliers, in multiple positions, pulling out the adult toy box. But it’s a lot more detail that what you’d usually see in a young adult novel. In an adult romance it would be considered one of the cleaner sex scenes - in a teen romance for some it will cross a line. In the scene’s defense it makes sense with the plot of the story, occurs very late in the novel and accents rather than detracts from the story. I don’t have an issue with this scene, but I do expect the novel to take some serious flack from readers of both genres because of what I just mentioned.
My second concern is about the religious bent of the novel. As evidenced in the response to fictional novels like the Davinci Code by Dan Brown, devout Christians do not like the mythology of their religion messed with in any way. While I feel the tweaking of the mythology works and isn’t insulting to the religion in any way, I don’t see the pope walking up to the writer and telling her she did a good job. I could very easily see this book ending up on some banned book lists once it’s released just because it does tweak the religion of Christianity a little to fit the needs of the story. On the flip side of that -atheists, agnostics and others who don’t follow Christianity are likely to feel very uncomfortable with the frequent references to God and Christian beliefs. Because the plot of the book is saving the souls of humanity from burning in Hell, there would be no way to avoid speaking of God. But I can easily picture non Christians avoiding the book because they don’t want to read about God. I really feel this book is going to have a hard time finding a home among readers. The problem is that that really disappoints me because it is an excellent novel.
So now on to my review, there were actually only three things that I personally didn’t like about the novel. I happen to be agnostic, meaning I haven’t really made a decision of what I believe as far as religion goes. I may make one at some point, but I usually avoid works that make frequent references to God and have a strong religious push. I saw the need for it in this novel, but I was a little uncomfortable as a reader with it. That said, it wasn’t like I was reading passages from the bible or listening to a lot of praying as you’d find in some religious novels. The religious content was central to the plot and necessary but part of the reason I could see agnostics avoiding the novel is because some points were a little uncomfortable for me.
The second thing I really didn’t like was that the CIA and KGB plot twists felt like they were pulled straight from the old television show Alias. Her dead father is a CIA agent who married a Russian with former KGB ties. When he dies they blame her for blowing his cover whether she did so or not. They even had the best friend who had an affair with the Russian wife. Almost all of this stuff by the way also happened in that television show. She really didn’t need any of that to set up the story she was trying to tell. None of the CIA and KGB things were central to the plot in any way. It wasn’t a spy novel, adding the spy things were a little corny and really did detract from the story. If it was an adventure or spy story maybe I’d understand using similar plot and character points to a spy television show, but since none of the main characters are spies what is the point in adding this?
The final thing that bothered me is the opening seemed too contrived. The female heroine starts out living in San Francisco, while the hero lives in Colorado. By the second chapter her mother is deported and she’s shipped off to family that just happen to live in the exact same town he does. I know she needed to create a situation which would place the female and male lead together. However this just fell into place way too easily and coincidences like that just don’t happen in real life. If she had had the girl move to the same town for some other reason, before she randomly met the hero that I could see working. If the guy purposely rented an apartment where she lived to be closer to her, I could see that working as well. But coincidences lining up to put them living near each other after they meet, just didn’t work for me.
So far I’ve been really critical of this book; the weird thing here is I LOVED the book. I don’t think it was a quite a five star novel yet, but I’d definitely consider myself a fan of the series. I read ebooks on my ipod for the most part, the problem with net galley ebooks is the only reader they work with doesn’t allow you to change the font size on the ipod. So they try to fit a novel size page on a tiny ipod touch screen and the print ends up being about the size of that fine print on the back of your credit card statement. If you want to read the books at a normal size print you have to sit and do so at your computer and despite how nice your computer chair is that gets uncomfortable after a while. I seldom read a net galley read in one sitting just because it’s not convenient for me to read, either I get a headache from small text or I get sore from sitting at my desk too long. When I open this novel on my computer I only meant to skim it a little, glance over the text maybe come back to it later. I was engrossed in the story within pages and sat here until it was finished. Time flew and I was so involved in the story I didn’t realize how long I’d sat here until it was finished and the sun was rising outside my window.
It was fast paced, with wonderful point of view changes. The characters were multifaceted, easy to relate to and care about. The book was extremely well written with an intriguing plot that had me turning the pages as fast as my mouse would scroll. The Mephisto Covenant was an excellent novel and Trinity Faegen is not a writer to be missed. I think she will have a little trouble finding her fan base when this book hits the shelves, however when she does find those fans I expect that they will be devoted and loyal. I know that I can definitely be counted among those fans.
***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***
Sasha Annenkova is a seventeen year old Anabo, a descendent of Aurora, the child of Adam and Eve before original sin. She has no idea what she is, and no clue that she doesn’t experience emotions like jealously, greed, rage and hate like normal human beings. She’s just not made to have thoughts like that cross her mind. She discovers what she is the hard way, when she’s almost stoned to death by the Ravens, a secret group in her school who has forsaken God and worship a son of hell named Eryx. The only thing that prevent Sasha from facing a horrible death in the opening scene is Ajax DeKyanos and his brothers, the Mephisto – children of an Anabo and Mephistopheles, a fallen angel who collects the souls of hell for Lucifer.
Jax and his brothers also happen to be Eryx’s younger brothers, the difference between the siblings, Eryx wants to rule hell and take from humanity the free will that allows them the chance at Heaven, Jax and the rest of the brothers, want to stop him and want redemption. God gave the boys, who never should have been born, one chance at redemption. Each would find an Anabo destined for them and if that Anabo chose to love them and they to love her in return then when the world ended they would have a chance to enter Heaven. However, in return for that chance they must collect the lost souls stolen by Eryx and prevent him from taking Hell from Lucifer who at least gave humans the free will to chose to live a life either worthy of Heaven or Hell before taking their soul to Hell’s fiery depths. And even once they find their Anabo they must live a life worthy of entrance to Heaven’s gates if they expect to be admitted.
When Jax catches Sasha’s scent, he knows she’s meant for him and him alone. After having lived as an eighteen year old son of Hell for almost a thousand years he jumps at the chance at redemption offered in Sasha. But will she choose him over all the other safe guys living in the world? Worse when a set of circumstances leave Sasha living in the same house as two of Eryx’s followers can he protect her long enough to prove to her he’s worth it or will Eryx steal his chance of redemption too?
I know that’s kind of a long summary, but it barely touches on the plot, there’s so much set up to even understand the idea of the plot that without that background the plot itself is hard to explain. I’m going to do this review a little different than most. I want to start by discussing my concerns with this book rather than positives or negatives.
While I’m sure upon its release the publisher will place this book in a genre, the way the book is written it kind of falls between genres encompassing aspects of both but aspect that won’t appeal to all readers of either genre. For the most part this has a young adult paranormal romance set up. However toward the end of the book it does include one slightly graphic sex scene. The scene is written more like what you’d see in an adult paranormal romance novel. While it didn’t bother me, I think parents of teens will be concerned about the detail in this scene and I expect to see the book taking a lot of flack about the scene from the young adult crowd. On the flip side of that a seventeen year old heroine is not going to appeal to a lot of romance readers. While the sex scene would probably appeal to them, the age of the heroine might discourage them from picking up the book. I know there’s mention of sex in lots of young adult novels, but it’s usually more like a sentence or two making it clear the act took place, rather than description of the actual act. This is more like the description you’d find in an adult romance novel. It’s not dirty really, it’s not like she’s talking about teens hanging from chandeliers, in multiple positions, pulling out the adult toy box. But it’s a lot more detail that what you’d usually see in a young adult novel. In an adult romance it would be considered one of the cleaner sex scenes - in a teen romance for some it will cross a line. In the scene’s defense it makes sense with the plot of the story, occurs very late in the novel and accents rather than detracts from the story. I don’t have an issue with this scene, but I do expect the novel to take some serious flack from readers of both genres because of what I just mentioned.
My second concern is about the religious bent of the novel. As evidenced in the response to fictional novels like the Davinci Code by Dan Brown, devout Christians do not like the mythology of their religion messed with in any way. While I feel the tweaking of the mythology works and isn’t insulting to the religion in any way, I don’t see the pope walking up to the writer and telling her she did a good job. I could very easily see this book ending up on some banned book lists once it’s released just because it does tweak the religion of Christianity a little to fit the needs of the story. On the flip side of that -atheists, agnostics and others who don’t follow Christianity are likely to feel very uncomfortable with the frequent references to God and Christian beliefs. Because the plot of the book is saving the souls of humanity from burning in Hell, there would be no way to avoid speaking of God. But I can easily picture non Christians avoiding the book because they don’t want to read about God. I really feel this book is going to have a hard time finding a home among readers. The problem is that that really disappoints me because it is an excellent novel.
So now on to my review, there were actually only three things that I personally didn’t like about the novel. I happen to be agnostic, meaning I haven’t really made a decision of what I believe as far as religion goes. I may make one at some point, but I usually avoid works that make frequent references to God and have a strong religious push. I saw the need for it in this novel, but I was a little uncomfortable as a reader with it. That said, it wasn’t like I was reading passages from the bible or listening to a lot of praying as you’d find in some religious novels. The religious content was central to the plot and necessary but part of the reason I could see agnostics avoiding the novel is because some points were a little uncomfortable for me.
The second thing I really didn’t like was that the CIA and KGB plot twists felt like they were pulled straight from the old television show Alias. Her dead father is a CIA agent who married a Russian with former KGB ties. When he dies they blame her for blowing his cover whether she did so or not. They even had the best friend who had an affair with the Russian wife. Almost all of this stuff by the way also happened in that television show. She really didn’t need any of that to set up the story she was trying to tell. None of the CIA and KGB things were central to the plot in any way. It wasn’t a spy novel, adding the spy things were a little corny and really did detract from the story. If it was an adventure or spy story maybe I’d understand using similar plot and character points to a spy television show, but since none of the main characters are spies what is the point in adding this?
The final thing that bothered me is the opening seemed too contrived. The female heroine starts out living in San Francisco, while the hero lives in Colorado. By the second chapter her mother is deported and she’s shipped off to family that just happen to live in the exact same town he does. I know she needed to create a situation which would place the female and male lead together. However this just fell into place way too easily and coincidences like that just don’t happen in real life. If she had had the girl move to the same town for some other reason, before she randomly met the hero that I could see working. If the guy purposely rented an apartment where she lived to be closer to her, I could see that working as well. But coincidences lining up to put them living near each other after they meet, just didn’t work for me.
So far I’ve been really critical of this book; the weird thing here is I LOVED the book. I don’t think it was a quite a five star novel yet, but I’d definitely consider myself a fan of the series. I read ebooks on my ipod for the most part, the problem with net galley ebooks is the only reader they work with doesn’t allow you to change the font size on the ipod. So they try to fit a novel size page on a tiny ipod touch screen and the print ends up being about the size of that fine print on the back of your credit card statement. If you want to read the books at a normal size print you have to sit and do so at your computer and despite how nice your computer chair is that gets uncomfortable after a while. I seldom read a net galley read in one sitting just because it’s not convenient for me to read, either I get a headache from small text or I get sore from sitting at my desk too long. When I open this novel on my computer I only meant to skim it a little, glance over the text maybe come back to it later. I was engrossed in the story within pages and sat here until it was finished. Time flew and I was so involved in the story I didn’t realize how long I’d sat here until it was finished and the sun was rising outside my window.
It was fast paced, with wonderful point of view changes. The characters were multifaceted, easy to relate to and care about. The book was extremely well written with an intriguing plot that had me turning the pages as fast as my mouse would scroll. The Mephisto Covenant was an excellent novel and Trinity Faegen is not a writer to be missed. I think she will have a little trouble finding her fan base when this book hits the shelves, however when she does find those fans I expect that they will be devoted and loyal. I know that I can definitely be counted among those fans.
stonemountain's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ladybellatrix's review
2.0
I didn't give this one star because all in all I liked the ideas for the novel and I think better executed it might have been a good story.
Sasha is trying to find out who killed her father, and in desperation is taken into a cult that are pretty much a laughing stock in her school. However it quickly becomes apparent they're not who they seem and she finds herself thrown into a world of Heaven/Hell and Ajax.
The problem with this book is that the writing is terrible and initially I thought I was reading fanfiction, but slowly the ideas come to light and though the writing never really improves, you are immediately turned onto the reasons Sasha will be a Mary Sue, and Ajax will be the brooding bad boy.
From there, this follows a very familiar Young Adult pattern.
Sasha is trying to find out who killed her father, and in desperation is taken into a cult that are pretty much a laughing stock in her school. However it quickly becomes apparent they're not who they seem and she finds herself thrown into a world of Heaven/Hell and Ajax.
The problem with this book is that the writing is terrible and initially I thought I was reading fanfiction, but slowly the ideas come to light and though the writing never really improves, you are immediately turned onto the reasons Sasha will be a Mary Sue, and Ajax will be the brooding bad boy.
From there, this follows a very familiar Young Adult pattern.
jaymeshaw's review
2.0
Again this is another "Angels & Demons" type of book. A different twist, having to do with the dark angels being able to achieve redemption through love. It was really weird at times, and much more graphic than I would anticipate for a YA novel sometimes. At one point the main character is stoned to death - well attempted stoning, anyway. I felt this book was really up and down. Sometimes I couldn't put it down and sometimes it was so predictable it was boring. I won't read any more in this series, and I think I need a break from this type of YA novel.
xxsquigglesxx's review
3.0
OVERALL IMPRESSION: This book was pretty confusing at first. I didn't know what was going on; I didn't know what each group of people were -- the Anabo, the Ravens, the Skia, etc -- it was hard to figure out what everyone's purpose was. As the book continued, things were explained and I figured out everyone's purpose. This was an okay book, but not one that I jumped out of my seat for and had to finish right away.
CHARACTERS: I honestly didn't connect with any of the characters in this book. None them stood to me and made me want to learn more about them.
COVER: I love the cover of this one! The dark atmosphere, the trees in the background. I love the dress the girl is wearing and the bridge that she is walking over.
*I received a copy of this book from Amazon Vine for review.
CHARACTERS: I honestly didn't connect with any of the characters in this book. None them stood to me and made me want to learn more about them.
COVER: I love the cover of this one! The dark atmosphere, the trees in the background. I love the dress the girl is wearing and the bridge that she is walking over.
*I received a copy of this book from Amazon Vine for review.
daisy87's review
3.0
This is a hard book for me to review. I REALLY wanted to love it, but I didn't. And I kinda hate that I didn't love it. I have SO much love for this cover, it's not even funny, I'm just a bit disappointed that for me the story didn't live up to it.
I was pretty intrigued by the whole Mephisto thing and how these boys could get their redemption by finding a girl to love them unconditionally. That's a pretty nice concept. But the whole explanation behind Anabo and Mephisto and everything left me feeling confused. Sometimes it was like I should just know more about this stuff from the way it was mentioned in the story, except we hadn't gotten that part of the explanation yet. Which kinda annoyed me, cause I kept wondering if I'd missed something.
I did appreciate that while religion is obviously a big part of the story, it doesn't get shoved down your throat and it doesn't get preachy. This can majorly put me off and I was pretty happy with how it was handled here.
Another thing that bothered me was that there was some insta-'I can't imagine my life without you' going on' and it felt mostly based on lust and the fact that Jax knew Sasha was Anabo. Aside from Sasha constantly landing in trouble and Jax getting her out of it, I didn't really feel like they got to know each other at all, so the falling in love felt superficial to me.
Also, I was kinda annoyed that while Sasha was ready to turn away from God and pledge her soul to Eryx to find out who killed her father, after that she doesn't do anything to discover who was responsible for it, which seemed off to me. I also really wanted Sasha to grow a spine and stand up to people who were treating her horribly, instead of needing to get some of Jax's anger management issues through kissing him for this to happen.
Having said all this, I must also say that I did enjoy the book. While I wasn't really big on the romance, I did FEEL the emotions Jax was going through, I felt his despair because he believed Sasha would never love him. And the world Jax lives in it pretty intriguing, so I had fun exploring that. I'm also wondering which brother will get his redemption in the next book.
So while I had issues with this book, it still ended up being an enjoyable read and I'm sticking with the series to see where it'll lead us next.
My rating: 3 stars
I was pretty intrigued by the whole Mephisto thing and how these boys could get their redemption by finding a girl to love them unconditionally. That's a pretty nice concept. But the whole explanation behind Anabo and Mephisto and everything left me feeling confused. Sometimes it was like I should just know more about this stuff from the way it was mentioned in the story, except we hadn't gotten that part of the explanation yet. Which kinda annoyed me, cause I kept wondering if I'd missed something.
I did appreciate that while religion is obviously a big part of the story, it doesn't get shoved down your throat and it doesn't get preachy. This can majorly put me off and I was pretty happy with how it was handled here.
Another thing that bothered me was that there was some insta-'I can't imagine my life without you' going on' and it felt mostly based on lust and the fact that Jax knew Sasha was Anabo. Aside from Sasha constantly landing in trouble and Jax getting her out of it, I didn't really feel like they got to know each other at all, so the falling in love felt superficial to me.
Also, I was kinda annoyed that while Sasha was ready to turn away from God and pledge her soul to Eryx to find out who killed her father, after that she doesn't do anything to discover who was responsible for it, which seemed off to me. I also really wanted Sasha to grow a spine and stand up to people who were treating her horribly, instead of needing to get some of Jax's anger management issues through kissing him for this to happen.
Having said all this, I must also say that I did enjoy the book. While I wasn't really big on the romance, I did FEEL the emotions Jax was going through, I felt his despair because he believed Sasha would never love him. And the world Jax lives in it pretty intriguing, so I had fun exploring that. I'm also wondering which brother will get his redemption in the next book.
So while I had issues with this book, it still ended up being an enjoyable read and I'm sticking with the series to see where it'll lead us next.
My rating: 3 stars
kriscq's review
3.0
General Comments
What you guys need to know upfront is that I had two very different kinds of reaction to this book, and they can mostly be divided between the first half and the second half of the book, so my entire review will divided down that line. Basically, the first half did not appeal to me very much. The first couple pages were dull and then I felt like I was dropped face first into the deep end of a pool while half asleep. There was too much to handle all at once and I felt like I was trying to catch up for a good while. But for some strange reason I couldn’t stop reading, I just had to find out what happened next.
Luckily, by the second half I found myself enjoying the story. At some point the characters started to grow on me and I was actually invested in the story. I really and truly wanted to know what would happen in the end. And the ending was beautiful. There were actually tears in my eyes. Seriously.
Critical Review
Author’s POV/ Voice:
The author chose to use the third person POV, which didn’t work for me in the very beginning, but somehow the frankness of the author’s voice pulled me in. Even as I struggled at times with sections of the book, I feel like the author’s voice refused to let me stop reading. It was simply that powerful.
Characters:
Sasha, our female protagonist, was my least favourite character in the beginning. My biggest problem was getting to know her. I felt like we were being told what she was like over and over without really seeing or experiencing what she was like. In the second half of the book it felt like the author got more comfortable with Sasha as a character and started to flesh her out. She suddenly became a real person to me, flesh and blood, and by the end I actually liked her.
Jax was my favourite character from the very beginning. I really wanted to know how he’d try to win Sasha over but I actually never got to see him struggle. Despite that, he was still so endearing in how much he cared for her. One problem I had with his character is that I didn’t really see his struggles with his dark side. I felt like I was being told about them or I was seeing a regular guy’s reactions to certain situations, not the reactions of a guy struggling with his innate evil.
The other characters in the story seemed rather underdeveloped. A few had characteristics that seemed unnecessarily exaggerated and were therefore extremely unrealistic. However, I eventually learned to ignore them and just focused on Sasha and Jax, which may have been the point.
Storyline/ Plot:
So the description made this book seem really interesting but it made me expect A and then gave me Z. I expected more development and some beautiful explanations. Instead, I got was a lot of back story early on, and I wasn’t able to digest it all at once. Then there were a few lulls in the action of the story which made me extremely impatient. Sometimes I didn’t want to read about the dysfunctional household that Sasha found herself in, I just wanted her and Jax or her, Jax, and the Ravens. The story really didn’t meet its full potential in my opinion, however, it still managed to be an interesting read.
Other:
There were a few other things that I felt the need to mention. Firstly, the instalove. While Sasha may seem indecisive and ‘resistant’, the instant attraction and lust going on was disappointing because I was looking forward to Jax trying to build a relationship with her from scratch. Secondly, I found it a bit hard to believe how easily all these teenagers accepted the idea of someone recruiting them and telling them they wanted to change Hell so that the world would be a better place, and that all they had to do was renounce God. Finally the sex scene at the end. In a word: uncomfortable. I’m not a prude, but I would have preferred to just have assumed they were going at it rather than having to know in detail.
Rating Conclusion
In my opinion, The Mephisto Covenant rates 2.5 out of 5 stars. By the end of the book, I found myself really liking it, however, the characters and the direction of the storyline were both a little disappointing. Then there were a few uncomfortable moments that really detracted from my overall experience. To sum it up, it was a relatively entertaining read.
For more reviews check out my book blog: Words That Fly
What you guys need to know upfront is that I had two very different kinds of reaction to this book, and they can mostly be divided between the first half and the second half of the book, so my entire review will divided down that line. Basically, the first half did not appeal to me very much. The first couple pages were dull and then I felt like I was dropped face first into the deep end of a pool while half asleep. There was too much to handle all at once and I felt like I was trying to catch up for a good while. But for some strange reason I couldn’t stop reading, I just had to find out what happened next.
Luckily, by the second half I found myself enjoying the story. At some point the characters started to grow on me and I was actually invested in the story. I really and truly wanted to know what would happen in the end. And the ending was beautiful. There were actually tears in my eyes. Seriously.
Critical Review
Author’s POV/ Voice:
The author chose to use the third person POV, which didn’t work for me in the very beginning, but somehow the frankness of the author’s voice pulled me in. Even as I struggled at times with sections of the book, I feel like the author’s voice refused to let me stop reading. It was simply that powerful.
Characters:
Sasha, our female protagonist, was my least favourite character in the beginning. My biggest problem was getting to know her. I felt like we were being told what she was like over and over without really seeing or experiencing what she was like. In the second half of the book it felt like the author got more comfortable with Sasha as a character and started to flesh her out. She suddenly became a real person to me, flesh and blood, and by the end I actually liked her.
Jax was my favourite character from the very beginning. I really wanted to know how he’d try to win Sasha over but I actually never got to see him struggle. Despite that, he was still so endearing in how much he cared for her. One problem I had with his character is that I didn’t really see his struggles with his dark side. I felt like I was being told about them or I was seeing a regular guy’s reactions to certain situations, not the reactions of a guy struggling with his innate evil.
The other characters in the story seemed rather underdeveloped. A few had characteristics that seemed unnecessarily exaggerated and were therefore extremely unrealistic. However, I eventually learned to ignore them and just focused on Sasha and Jax, which may have been the point.
Storyline/ Plot:
So the description made this book seem really interesting but it made me expect A and then gave me Z. I expected more development and some beautiful explanations. Instead, I got was a lot of back story early on, and I wasn’t able to digest it all at once. Then there were a few lulls in the action of the story which made me extremely impatient. Sometimes I didn’t want to read about the dysfunctional household that Sasha found herself in, I just wanted her and Jax or her, Jax, and the Ravens. The story really didn’t meet its full potential in my opinion, however, it still managed to be an interesting read.
Other:
There were a few other things that I felt the need to mention. Firstly, the instalove. While Sasha may seem indecisive and ‘resistant’, the instant attraction and lust going on was disappointing because I was looking forward to Jax trying to build a relationship with her from scratch. Secondly, I found it a bit hard to believe how easily all these teenagers accepted the idea of someone recruiting them and telling them they wanted to change Hell so that the world would be a better place, and that all they had to do was renounce God. Finally the sex scene at the end. In a word: uncomfortable. I’m not a prude, but I would have preferred to just have assumed they were going at it rather than having to know in detail.
Rating Conclusion
In my opinion, The Mephisto Covenant rates 2.5 out of 5 stars. By the end of the book, I found myself really liking it, however, the characters and the direction of the storyline were both a little disappointing. Then there were a few uncomfortable moments that really detracted from my overall experience. To sum it up, it was a relatively entertaining read.
For more reviews check out my book blog: Words That Fly
kellyherself's review
2.0
Isn’t the cover of this novel gorgeous? I love it. It is, unfortunately, probably the only thing I liked about this book, which is a shame.
The first 50-60 pages of this novel moved very quickly. I was drawn into the story and anticipated The Mephisto Covenant being a great read. After these initial pages, though, the novel veered off course for me. Here are my basic problems.
First, the plot was extremely complicated. EXTREMELY. It was very hard to follow and track the rules of Faegen’s world. There was an over-abundance of supernatural characters, each with their own special powers, in this book. Keeping their function and purpose within the novel straight was difficult. Due to there being all of these different characters with individual purposes (Skia, Mephistos, Luminas, Lost Souls, Purgs, Normals, etc.) the actual plot became hard to follow.
Second, the characters were problematic. The characters, again, had a vast amount of supernatural powers, so there was that aspect to juggle. But the characters were mostly unlikeable as people. I couldn’t connect to Sasha or to Jax. They weren’t dynamic characters. I found them to be under-developed and flat. Because I couldn’t connect to the central characters in this novel, I had difficulty caring about what happened.
Third, there were aspects of the plot and characters that I found extremely off-putting. For instance, there is much of the plot of the novel dedicated to whether or not Sasha can make this enormous decision to be with Jax. There are various reasons why this is a hard decision for her to make, but I don’t want to be spoilery. Sasha is very insistent that she cannot be with Jax and this is repeated over and over again, until suddenly, in a single page-turn, Sasha changes her mind and Jax is suddenly the love of her life. This is very shoddy writing and did not sit well with me.
Also, the details surrounding Sasha and Jax engaging in sex and the “marking” that would take place made me nauseous. I felt this played no good role in the novel and fed into every antiquated notion of the loss of virginity. It also just came across as trashy.
I cannot honestly recommend this novel. There are so many fantastic books out there that I wouldn’t recommend such a mediocre work. I very much doubt that I will read any further installments in this series.
The first 50-60 pages of this novel moved very quickly. I was drawn into the story and anticipated The Mephisto Covenant being a great read. After these initial pages, though, the novel veered off course for me. Here are my basic problems.
First, the plot was extremely complicated. EXTREMELY. It was very hard to follow and track the rules of Faegen’s world. There was an over-abundance of supernatural characters, each with their own special powers, in this book. Keeping their function and purpose within the novel straight was difficult. Due to there being all of these different characters with individual purposes (Skia, Mephistos, Luminas, Lost Souls, Purgs, Normals, etc.) the actual plot became hard to follow.
Second, the characters were problematic. The characters, again, had a vast amount of supernatural powers, so there was that aspect to juggle. But the characters were mostly unlikeable as people. I couldn’t connect to Sasha or to Jax. They weren’t dynamic characters. I found them to be under-developed and flat. Because I couldn’t connect to the central characters in this novel, I had difficulty caring about what happened.
Third, there were aspects of the plot and characters that I found extremely off-putting. For instance, there is much of the plot of the novel dedicated to whether or not Sasha can make this enormous decision to be with Jax. There are various reasons why this is a hard decision for her to make, but I don’t want to be spoilery. Sasha is very insistent that she cannot be with Jax and this is repeated over and over again, until suddenly, in a single page-turn, Sasha changes her mind and Jax is suddenly the love of her life. This is very shoddy writing and did not sit well with me.
Also, the details surrounding Sasha and Jax engaging in sex and the “marking” that would take place made me nauseous. I felt this played no good role in the novel and fed into every antiquated notion of the loss of virginity. It also just came across as trashy.
I cannot honestly recommend this novel. There are so many fantastic books out there that I wouldn’t recommend such a mediocre work. I very much doubt that I will read any further installments in this series.