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A review by kokechii
Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor
3.0
Reviewing the entire trilogy here: the first one was okay, the second one was the best, the third one... I almost DNF'd. Altogether I'd give it three stars but even now I'm not sure if it deserves such a high rating.
Reading this in two days (because see, this is my problem, once I start reading something in parts but finished, I don't stop until I finish all the books), I was excited at parts and so, so, so tired at others. The world - I wanted to know more about the world, I was intrigued by the seraphs and the chimaeras and the resurrection? Holy shit did I want to know more about the resurrections. How are they done? What was exactly Brimstone doing (can I just say that Brimstone was such a character in the first book that I kept missing him in second and third?) and how? Nevermind, we'll never know, because the author never described it or explained it quite entirely. Sure, I can allow the gaps to fill in with our own imagination but for something so important to the trilogy, I thought we'd get more than "collect teeth, tithe, souls" trifecta in poor explanation. And we had one myth how the world and everything was made, then we had another and THEN we had the third, which maybe wasn't a myth at all but... I found myself staring into distance wondering do I care at all.
The third book starts with a completely new character in such a way that I honestly went back to the first page on my Kindle to be sure that I was reading a THIRD book. Why would you introduce a new character that's somewhat important to the story this late in the game and why would you give her so much chapters and not only that, but give chapters to the people around her (Morgan, WHY) and completely sideline Karou who we have been following the entire time? Just... What. Why. The constant POV jumping almost made me lose it in the third book, I honestly wanted to stop reading entirely too many times.
The new lore introduced in the third book also come too late, for me at least, because I think some of it should have been put in the second one. And I don't accept setting it up in the first book with Razgut because... no. Just no. It just kept pouring in and I felt it was too much. By the time we came to the ending (and even then had almost 100 pages left), I was exhausted. I didn't care about the beasts and the sky or anything else, my mind just kept whispering "can we be done now, please?". The uneven writing also grated on my nerves a bit. The second book had the best writing for me, the prose itself and the political intrigue and the twists (when they came) felt earned. The characters grew and felt things and earned their places in the story. We just needed to wrap it up. But... Felt a bit to me as if the author really wanted to write the second book and then had to make do with the first and the third one around it. The constant weird pauses at the end of chapters also annoyed me a bit. Paraphrasing, but going "We waited for the worst............. And it came." at the end of a chapter made me scream. It felt a bit condescending. You could have started the next chapter with the words "And the worst came", it would make more sense. Why spoil the next chapter in the previous one. (I have a bone to pick too with the way all chapters were short and the constant changing POV's but let's not right now).
So many plot points opened up in the third book that it was a chore to remember all of them and to even care about them and the wrapping up took entirely too long. We lost the central romance to other things and we lost the central conflict too because the ending itself... Sigh. I could go on, but I won't. I wanted to really like this trilogy, specially because I think the second book is really, really good. But the last book honestly made me so exhausted. And it made me realize that I connected more with side characters than with our main ones.
Oh and: We haven't been introduced. - After this, AFTER THIS, I realized that that is the story I actually wanted to be reading. These two had more romance in this one sentence than Akiva and Karou in three whole books.
Would I recommend it for reading? Sure. But I'd also caution about it upfront and would completely understand if someone choose not to finish this trilogy.
Reading this in two days (because see, this is my problem, once I start reading something in parts but finished, I don't stop until I finish all the books), I was excited at parts and so, so, so tired at others. The world - I wanted to know more about the world, I was intrigued by the seraphs and the chimaeras and the resurrection? Holy shit did I want to know more about the resurrections. How are they done? What was exactly Brimstone doing (can I just say that Brimstone was such a character in the first book that I kept missing him in second and third?) and how? Nevermind, we'll never know, because the author never described it or explained it quite entirely. Sure, I can allow the gaps to fill in with our own imagination but for something so important to the trilogy, I thought we'd get more than "collect teeth, tithe, souls" trifecta in poor explanation. And we had one myth how the world and everything was made, then we had another and THEN we had the third, which maybe wasn't a myth at all but... I found myself staring into distance wondering do I care at all.
The third book starts with a completely new character in such a way that I honestly went back to the first page on my Kindle to be sure that I was reading a THIRD book. Why would you introduce a new character that's somewhat important to the story this late in the game and why would you give her so much chapters and not only that, but give chapters to the people around her (Morgan, WHY) and completely sideline Karou who we have been following the entire time? Just... What. Why. The constant POV jumping almost made me lose it in the third book, I honestly wanted to stop reading entirely too many times.
The new lore introduced in the third book also come too late, for me at least, because I think some of it should have been put in the second one. And I don't accept setting it up in the first book with Razgut because... no. Just no. It just kept pouring in and I felt it was too much. By the time we came to the ending (and even then had almost 100 pages left), I was exhausted. I didn't care about the beasts and the sky or anything else, my mind just kept whispering "can we be done now, please?". The uneven writing also grated on my nerves a bit. The second book had the best writing for me, the prose itself and the political intrigue and the twists (when they came) felt earned. The characters grew and felt things and earned their places in the story. We just needed to wrap it up. But... Felt a bit to me as if the author really wanted to write the second book and then had to make do with the first and the third one around it. The constant weird pauses at the end of chapters also annoyed me a bit. Paraphrasing, but going "We waited for the worst............. And it came." at the end of a chapter made me scream. It felt a bit condescending. You could have started the next chapter with the words "And the worst came", it would make more sense. Why spoil the next chapter in the previous one. (I have a bone to pick too with the way all chapters were short and the constant changing POV's but let's not right now).
So many plot points opened up in the third book that it was a chore to remember all of them and to even care about them and the wrapping up took entirely too long. We lost the central romance to other things and we lost the central conflict too because the ending itself... Sigh. I could go on, but I won't. I wanted to really like this trilogy, specially because I think the second book is really, really good. But the last book honestly made me so exhausted. And it made me realize that I connected more with side characters than with our main ones.
Oh and: We haven't been introduced. - After this, AFTER THIS, I realized that that is the story I actually wanted to be reading. These two had more romance in this one sentence than Akiva and Karou in three whole books.
Would I recommend it for reading? Sure. But I'd also caution about it upfront and would completely understand if someone choose not to finish this trilogy.