Okay, so first things first. I have to share a grievance that I experienced; just to get this all off of my chest: I had already written quite a long review for this book and for two others, as well.
Now, my dear Goodreaders; for the sake of my anguish over all of this I'm going to assume that all of you are wondering, "well what happened then, Cait?"
Well, my friends, my computer decided to be a prick and randomly turned off in the middle of finishing typing up my last review, so if you still aren't connecting the dots, they are all.....all gone. *hangs head* and now, I have to re-write them all. Sigh. I'm not exactly happy about it, but here goes my re-write of this review, hopefully it's as good as the previous one.
Now I know I'm in a bit of a minority here with this book (with the average rating being 4.26, which is very high for this site and almost no reviews that I could see under four stars) but I didn't find this book all that special or even very enjoyable. Sure, there were things that I thought Argyle did well in this series, but it just wasn't enough for me to give it higher than three stars, and here's why:
Brusenna, the main character of this book, was quite the annoying hypocrite for well over half of the book. She is so upset at her mother for hiding things from her and alienating people that could have helped them, mostly because of pride. So you would think that, when a situation arises where she has the opportunity to befriend someone or not be so secretive, she would grab at the chance to do so, but she doesn't. Instead, she does the one thing that she seems to hate so much, and pushes away people who are just trying to help her; even doing it over four times to the same person ( I will talk about this specific case later in the review) Then there was something even more infuriating; every time she sends someone away, she wails, "don't hate me, I can't lose you as a friend, too! I don't have many!"
............ WHAT?!!?
That is totally contradictory to what she is apparently trying to do. Of course they're going to be mad at you if they're only trying to help, and you send them away because of your damned pride, Brusenna! Maybe you'd actually make some friends if you don't tie them up onto a boat and put them in the damned ocean, or just leave them without a single explanation as to why you left! She was also very self-centered through the whole novel; she was soooo determined to believe that everything bad that happened was her fault, and that people shouldn't be fighting for her-even though said people clearly state that they aren't fighting for her- which she flat out refuses could even be a possibility. That state of mind almost got her killed about three freakin times. However, she did improve drastically at the last quarter, and grew a spine and a bit of a brain, but it wasn't enough for me to ignore the beginning, or what I'm about to say next.
The whole book, the reason for its existence, really, was Brusenna training for almost two years to fight they big, bad, evil, witch who is destroying the world, and right before the big battle that occurs; you find out that Brusenna is an extremely powerful witch. So with these witches both being so powerful, you'd think that when they do get together that there's going to be some wicked-awesome explosions and huge giant, barbed, vines that explode out of the ground; hell-bent on killing you.
Kind of like this, but with trees, and vines.
The big battle comes, they square up, and I get excited. Like squirm-in-your-seat-and-squeal excited, because, by this point, Brusenna has become a lot more mature and less egotistical, and I have begun to enjoy her character a lot more than I did in the first half, and I thought that this kick-ass battle that was sure to come would push me over the edge from thinking that it was okay to really liking it. Okay, so back to the battle. They're pacing around each other, get their seeds ready, throw them, and.........hedges. They grow.....hedges.
Not quite as impressive as the other picture, now is it.
The battle was so incredibly anti-climactic that I re-read it to see if there was something actually exciting in that that I was missing. And it wasn't just the how they battled that was disappointing; the whole moment was extremely short as well. I mean, Argyle builds up this battle throughout the whole book as Brusenna's big moment, so it's not outlandish of me to have some high expectations about it.
Oh, and there's one other thing I didn't really understand: there were witches of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, but they are only able to control plants so........that doesn't really make much sense to me at all. Why not just make them all be Earth or Plant if that's all they can do?
There was one character that I really did like through the whole book, though: Joshen. Not only was he swoon-worthy, but he was dependent, strong, caring, totally badass, and patient. Even when Brusenna sent him away tied up on a boat because she thought that she was making the right choice for him (ugh FYI Brusenna it's hislife, not yours), he took a job on a ship so that he could be close when he needed her, when I would have given that girl the bird and left her to screw up her life some more if she did that to me. And when Brusenna also improved as a character, I really did enjoy the relationship that Joshen and Brusenna had. It seemed really natural and was actually quite the strong base for a relationship instead of some insta-love.
I'm also torn that there isn't another book after this. On the one side, I'm glad that it isn't because I won't have to spend more money on the next book, but, then again, I only really started to like Brusenna towards the end of the novel, so I would have enjoyed another one and have had (hopefully) a whole book when she was the decision making badass who didn't send her friends away on boats. Sigh. I'm very torn.
Again, I know that I'm in the minority here, and you might love this book. I just couldn't connect with Argyle's world as well as many others seemed to be able to do. I guess I would say pick this one up, but do so knowing that it might not be like you had expected it to be.
Honestly, I think when I read this book, my brain cells died a little bit.
First of all, Bethany is a total idiot and is so clueless that I don't know how she even remembered to breathe when she woke up every morning.
Bethany: *wakes up in the morning and starts turning blue and thinks, ohhhh what am I supposed to do? It's really important...... *
Me: yes! Die, Bethany, die!
Bethany: *body begins to spasm as it's deprived of air it's on the tip of my tongue.... *
Me: No you don't! It's all a dream; you don't need anything!
Bethany: * Oh, yeah, I remember! Breathe...or whatever! body takes a huge racking breath*
Me: Awwww dammit.
That's not even an over-exaggeration people; this is one idiot narrator. She doesn't even know what freaking toothpaste is for, or how to even brush her teeth! And her boyfriend has to remind her to drink water because she can't possibly remember that herself. Then, to add insult to injury, every other page she gets those "cramps" in her chest whenever she's far away from her hubby. You know what those pains really are Bethany? I'm not really sorry to inform you, but those pains in your chest are more than likely mini heart attacks that will lead to one major one that ends your pathetic life. So you should probably go to the hospital tomorrow, as long as you remember to breathe next morning and don't die that way first.
Please just die.
And what the hell (pun half intended) is up with the name Bethany? Even her lust love interest Xavier has a more angelic name than she does! I honestly don't think it's that hard to come up with a more angelic name than that, anything than that. It took me about two seconds to go online, type angelic names, and find these names of some actual female angels (although some debate whether female angels exist, but just for argument's sake, lets assume that there is):
1. Anahita
2. Anauel
3. Ananchel
4. Barbelo
5. Bath Kol
6. Gazardiel
Wasn't that easy, folks!
Now, I understand that if you enrolled into a normal, 21st century school with a name like Bath Kol, Barbelo, or Anahita, that you would be given many stares and probably wouldn't be best if you're trying to stay "under the radar" *gag* and change it to a more common name like Bethany. Sadly, Bethany never says she has a different name, and that's what she was given by God, so obviously Adornetto didn't have the foresight to think that up. I guess the poor guy upstairs has just been around too long to care about what he names his angels, who just aren't that important anyways, right?
Gah.
While we're talking about upstairs, may I just say that Adornetto failed in describing it and the angels who I guess floated around up there. From what I've read in the Bible, whenever people meet angels and see their true forms they are completely, totally, and utterly terrified and the angels have to calm them down. The way Adornetto describes them, as big floating balls of light or essence or whatever isn't exactly terrifying. If an angel came down from heaven whose name was Bert and said "do not be afraid" as a big ball of light, I'd probably snigger and then one of my younger cousins would think it's a huge firefly and trap it in a jar. Then I'd have to tell the poor fella to let Bert go, because he has more important angelic things to do, like watch himself glow.
Hey, guys! Bert's back to play!
Coming back to how she described Heaven, I guess you could say more like the lack of description. Yay, a lot of puffy clouds, so it must be Heaven!
Her description of it reminds me of my little sister. We have a town near us that ends in "haven" but my sister-being only five-thought it said "heaven" so whenever we got close to the sign of it on the highway, she'd go, "are we in heaven yet?" Now we'd all say "awwww" because it was freaking adorable, but we know it's wrong. That's how it is with Adornetto; it's kind of cute that she tried (not even nearly as adorable as my sister), but she just missed the mark. By a mile.
See, even the puppy agrees with me! It's just a no, Adornetto. You can't argue with the cute.
While we're still on the topic of Adornetto's heaven I'd honestly be pretty scared if Bethany was my guide to Heaven since that's what she describes her job as. She'd probably pick up my little ball of light and let it slip through her fingers and I'd fall back through clouds. That's probably why she got sent down to Earth to find all of the little balls of light that she dropped, the klutz.
Yeah, I kind of hate this chick.
Since we're on the whole mission subject, there's one big thing that I don't understand: why on Heaven and hell and Earth above would God send one of the highest Archangels, Gabriel, to a sleepy little costal town when, according to them, this is only a slightly important place and there are much bigger battles being fought around the world? Throughout history there is one main constant during war: you send your best men to the most important spots of battle because the big battles like Normandy, Gettysburg, Stalingrad, and so on are the fights that can be the "turning point" of the war. You just do not send someone with the strength like Gabriel supposedly has to somewhere like that. And he didn't even do anything! He just "learned to be a human" How does learning to be a human have anything to do with saving the world from darkness, exactly! I mean if that's all it took I could just learn to slither around like a snake, be high and mighty like a cat, totally ignorant to the what's going on around like a dog, and become the President of the United States. Oh, wait.........
But anyways......that's not good battle strategy and shows what little sense that Adornetto has.
I take that back; she has no sense at all.
Another proof of her having no sense is the whole stinking ending. I mean, wow, how.....zomg amazing! Their lurve is so high for each other that it burns so bright through Bethany that it saves the day! She couldn't have done it without him, who is supposedly a normal human, and she obviously couldn't escape the bonds herself, because only twu lurve conquers all!
......excuse me while I go throw up all of that garbage.
Okay, Bethany is all weak for a little while because of her new human body (because balls of light are so strong, too), but you can only use that excuse for so long and by the time she's kidnapped, I think she should have at least been able to break out of them herself. Sadly, that's not what happened because, according to Adornetto, that would make Bethany seem too strong and girls aren't able to do anything, not even think, without a big, capable guy like Xavier by her side! That's too much feminism for her! Not even Gabriel could have done it, who is higher up in the ladder in Heaven than Jake Thorn is in Hell, only Xavier could, our loser hewo! It just annoyed me so badly I think I screamed when it was over out of sheer frustration.
This quote from the synopsis really bothered me, especially one specific part. "They must work hard to conceal their luminous glow, superhuman powers, and, most dangerous of all, their wings, all the while avoiding all human attachments."
Can you guess it?
If you guessed "luminous glow" you're right! I understand that they might have to slightly strain themselves to hide the rest, heck, if I was an angel I'd probably have a mini-romance with my gorgeous wings, but their luminescence? Unless they have no self control I don't think it's that hard to hide light. They'd be (and they were) pretty awful undercover agents if they can't snuff out a simple light. It's not like in Unearthly (which is everything Halo isn't) where she can't tell when she's going to suddenly burst into light, these guys in Halo just have a soft, cutsey little light that shouldn't require that much strain; they're heavenly beings, they should probably have enough control if they were picked for this!
And don't even get my started on the "avoiding all human attachments" part. If you can't tell from the rest of my review; that's the biggest piece of bullshit I've ever heard.
Ugh. Curse stupid plots that don't make any sense.
Xavier and Bethany's "love" was what really got me. You meet the guy one time on the beach and you talk to him a couple times in/out of school and that automatically qualifies him as someone who is "trustworthy" enough to show him your true identity and is your "one twu love". Since Adornetto once again didn't study up on angelic lore, I'll fill you guys in:
If you're an angel, God is your one and only love and if you even get slight feelings for anyone else, well, God is a jealous dude and will banish your sorry ass from Heaven for the rest of your existence. So, in all actuality, the very second that Bethany even felt the teeny tiniest feelings of like or love for Xavier, God would have stripped her of her wings and banished her. Then Bethany would have had to spend the rest of eternity pouting and not realizing why she did what she did was so, like, wrong! I guess not even the big man upstairs wanted to curse Earth with that and just let her do whatever the hell she wanted, even reveal her true identity to Xavier! If God gave her a name like Bethany, he's probably too busy with the rest of the Berts and Jim-Bobs getting trapped in jars around the Earth to notice such a huge infraction.
.......I think I'm going to be sick again.
I have a question. Why were all of the angels in this story only white? It kind of reminds me of how many churches and television shows picture Jesus: as a white man. If I remember correctly from the Bible, he was born in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and whether or not you believe he was Christ, just a prophet, a crazy person, or someone that never even existed, if he had been born in that region of the world, he definitely wasn't white. He would have had much darker skin and pretty much what you see when you look at your average middle-eastern man today. The only reason he went all Michael Jackson when you see pictures and such of him now is the church and the racist sentiments of people during that time. They couldn't possibly imagine the person they viewed to be their savior as, in their opinion, some dirty, savage, middle-eastern man, so in order to make him more popular with the rest of Europe and spread the religion they turned him white.
So, if God's own son wasn't white, what's to say the angels up in heaven aren't from multiple races? I think it's just very closed-off of Adornetto to only make the angels that we have seen thus far white. Would it kill her to make even some part of her book good? Not all people in this world who are right and just are white people. And that can be proven by just walking down the street of wherever you live, so for her not to include people of other races as angels just makes her seem very naive about how the world actually works.
Shhhh! Do you hear that? It's the horrible screams of your money, doomed to spend the rest of their lives with the shame of having been used to purchase this book, and my poor ten dollars are among them. In order to keep your money from the same sad fate, I have quite a few reasons why you should not buy this book, which turned out to be a huge dissapointment:
1. The writing
Throughout the whole novel her writing is extremely choppy and awkward; to me, it felt like Kate was having a veryyy hard time keeping her train of thought. And sadly, it's like that through the whole novel; Kate starts writing about one of Luce's time traveling experiences and has me mildly interested, but then she decides to shift gears because she feels like she needs to move on with the story, and does so with no literary grace. I put the book down several times and didn't read it again for hours because I just couldn't muddle through when she did that. Then to make things worse, I had to push myself just to get through the last half which I had hoped would be better, and that's never a good thing; it just really crawled along unbearably slowly for me. It was like finally getting to what you thought was the top of the mountain to find out that you aren't even a quarter of the way there yet. Then, there were quotes like this, that don't make any sense at all ( I also used this quote later on, that's how badly I got annoyed)
" at last" he breathed into her, finding her lips
"you found me"
"Always"
There are several problems with this; for one, Kate never says that they are still not totally lip-locked, so, apparently, they are talking to each other without ever removing their lips from one another.
Just like this, except people, frozen in that position, talking .
I, for one, think that that's very weird and in real life probably would sound like: "ee ls" "oo foond e" "als". I don't know about you, but that's not exactly light-the-candles-turn-down-the-lights romantic. Secondly, the whole breathing into her bit. Just try it, breathing out the words, "at last" (which is stupid sounding enough), and hell, if you're with your girl or your man try it while finding one another's lips and simultaneously breathing it down their throat, which I am going to assume is the only rational way you can breathe into somebody without being naked, and if you don't find any of that awkward, then, well, I don't know what to say to that. Get some help, maybe? I hope you can see though just ONE quote that a scene that was supposed to be romantic is actually a total fail when you break it down and really think about it. Don't get me wrong, this book is a nice improvement compared to her first two, but it's still too much purple prose and she has a lot sentences like: Luce did this. Then this. Then they made out here. The only really well-written scenes that I could find were the first and second time traveling scenes and actually had me going and interested, but then it just never really came back fully. Definitely not something I should have spent my money on.
2. The "time travel"
Oh God. This was literally so confusing. We don't even have an explanation about why she travels to the places she does until...oh...... halfway through the freaking book . That is way too long to keep your readers in the dark about something that is an integral part of the novel. I felt like Kate threw the time travel in there because it HAD to be, not because she wanted it there, which resulted in time travel that hurt my head and quite painfully, too. Then to add to the already massive time-travel migraine Daniel would randomly pop in some random fact about how it's her destiny to do this, to create the loop, and that he doesn't know what his destiny is, and yet, he does (which made the book okay for about two seconds, because he's having an ACTUAL struggle, albeit slightly confusing, but a struggle, nonetheless). But then Kate would be like that's enough of that, and have Daniel go skipping away in a field of roses and daises while I'm screaming, WHAT DESTINY?! WHAT'S GOING ON! I kind of understand why Luce can't know, but we're the readers for Pete's sake, and I think it would have made the book a lot better if at least I knew what was happening. It would have added the suspense that was sorely needed. But then, destiny took a really dangerous, and seriously annoying turn. Whenever Daniel would get somewhere conveniently right after Luce left, or he would only remember meeting himself in the past at the stupidest moments, he just chalked it up to destiny!
No. It doesn't make sense. Give us a reason and don't take the easy way out!
Now, I would like to present some real life cases of where having an excuse like destiny never works.
Case #1: " What?! Your baby sister got run over by the insane ice cream man?! Why didn't you help her?"
" It was my destiny not to! "
*gets bitchslapped*
Case #2: * I walk downstairs* " mom, I'm not going to school today; I'm actually going to go to a party and get drunk because it's my destiny!"
*gets bitchslapped*
The worse case; case #3: Girlfriend: "I love you sooo much baby, you're my everything! Happy two year anniversary!"
Boyfriend: " hey, girl, I'm sorry, but we just can't be together anymore"
Girlfriend: "WHAAATTT?!? WHY!"
Boyfriend: "It's not you, or me, it's destiny!"
* gets bitch-slapped and maybe shot*
Do you see my point? Just because you're an angel doesn't mean you can just leave it to destiny! If you want to read a good book about time travel, you should check out Timeless. It's pretty much everything good about time travel that Passion isn't.
3: What would amount to what I guess could be called a plot
When I said plot, I lied. There is no plot. No suspense, no action, no nothing. This is how the book goes in a nutshell.
Luce: I can't! But I must! But I can't!
Other characters: Yes, you cant! Just leave it alone, Luce!
Luce: But I must!
Other characters: *groan*
Daniel: I must find MY Luce! But, oh, look, there's a different Luce! I can't fall in love with that one! I can't! But I want to! But I can't! *paces for apparently weeks, months, days, he doesn't really know*
Cam: 'sup
Luce: hey, I just befriended a weird gargoyle named Bill! I'm going to not trust my instincts and let him come with me!
Bill: heh heh I have a big secret, but Luce doesn't know that so shhhhhh.
Luce: oh...wow....look at all of these me's. I'm a bitch. ( I actually clap). But it's whatevs, I'm going to take control of their bodies and make out with Daniel! (I groan)
Daniel: Yum
Bill: I'M GAY! Ohh...wait....wrong secret. Nevermind.
Luce: I'm going to kill my spirit! I must!
Bill: Yes you must!
Luce: But I can't!
Me and Bill: *groan*
Cam: *makes the book interesting for three pages*
Bill: I'm Satan! Muahahahaha! *hack*
Luce: I'll never give in to you! Ever!
* I actually start getting interested for a couple pages* until.....
" at last" he breathed into her, finding her lips
"you found me"
"Always"
Me: AHHHHHH EAHROEIA;REUIARHOWEI NOOOO!
*epilogue giving Kate an excuse to write another book and jack millions more dollars off of people*
May I just say, that Always is kind of like her always using the word "destiny". IT'S NOT THE ANSWER! She used that God-forsaken word about 15 times in the las couple of chapters as the answer for their love, and I just couldn't stand it!
4. The characters
Long, unbearable story short, Luce and Daniel suck. Luce is as self absorbed as ever and just goes galavanting through time, wreaking who knows what kind of havoc, and decides to take control of her past selves' bodies so she can watch them burst into flames and know what it "feels like". Which, might I add, is advice from a gargoyle that hides from the angels who are the supposed good guys in the novel, which doesn't strike Luce as strange at all. If a gargoyle went up to me and said, "hey, you've never met me before, but I'm a good guy, and I want you to go to the empire state building and jump off! Don't worry, you'll be fine!" I would run away as fast as my legs could carry me, but not our Luce, because she's such a keeper. And by keep, I mean throw into a dumpster. She's a TSTL heroine at its finest. Then for a little, I felt like she was actually getting somewhere trying to find her answers, which included defying Daniel! *gasp!* But then Kate takes the easy way out and just falls back on "destiny" and "eternal love" *gag* (for any future writers out there, don't you dare do this. It will kill any sort of action and suspense you've built with one fell blow). Also, I didn't like some of her past selves and how different they were to her present self. Sure, they were born in different times, but I thought at least their personalities would be the same as the current Luce's. Sadly, most of them were even more pathetic and dumb like her chinese past; some don't even look like Luce at all. ugh. Coming back to her chinese past, I just don't understand how on earth she could have gotten away with killing the emperor; even with her wearing his clothes! I can't believe that they took such a second grade excuse as "I'm sick so my voice sounds funky but I'm totes him" It's not like I could go into the white house, stuff Obama in a closet, wear his suit, and get away with it! People just aren't that dumb, so don't make them sound that way. Luce also gets the top prize for most controlling, obsessive girlfriend I've ever read. In one scene, she is literally jealous of the very ground that a past Daniel is walking on . Oh my God, Luce! If you're that jealous just go lick Daniel's toes or something! Will really show that dirt!
Here you go, Luce! Maybe you can use it to scoop up some of that dirt!
And Daniel is the worst tortured soul character I've ever had the pain of reading. Sure, there were some points that might have slightly poked at my heart-strings, but those were very few and far between. He kept important things from us and from Luce, which made me dislike him even more than I already did. I really wanted to be let in on some things that he wouldn't say from Luce's perspective, but he never does. I know Luce would burst into flames if she knew, but it's not like if I read it I'm going to spontaneously combust, and neither is Daniel. It's always just Luce, Luce, Luce, death, Luce, Luce, jumping off cliffs, Luce, Luce. There's rarely any real development going on with him, which made his chapters the hardest to read. I know Luce's an idiot, but at least she's doing something, unlike Daniel, who seems to be only capable of watching himself. Can I just say, narcissist much? And the part in Heaven where Daniel goes up to God and says hey, I'll let you have Luce die and die and die for thousands of years because out love is just so true! Woah woah woah, Daniel, hold on a second. Did you ever ASK the first-ever Luce if that's what she would have wanted? To have excruciatingly painful deaths for the rest of her reincarnated existence? No. The douchebag. You don't make a decision like that without asking the person it's going to effect! Let me teach Daniel a lesson that he should have learned a loooong time ago. In life, people that you love most whether they're you're husband/wife, family, or friend, and that you can't possibly live without are going to die, no matter how much you don't want them to. And then to not have the guts to go " I just need to let her go because I love her" makes him look like a pussy. To add onto that he makes Luce suffer through not just the pain of death with his choice, but all of the family and friends that cared for her for however long she lived and now have to live with that ache of losing a loved one for the rest of their lives is just.... totally selfish, uncaring, and so centered on himself with the boo hoo I want Luce I can't live without her that I seriously, if I ever saw him, would punch him in the face. That is such a big no-no that I don't know how God didn't smite him where he stood for being so selfish.
Did anyone else find it, oh....I don't know..... strange that Daniel was magically able to change his body form to look asian, mexican and white? Unless angels are the best plastic surgeons around and were somehow able to change his eye shape and color, skin color, height, and just general body form when we have only developed the technology for any kind of body-altering plastic surgery within the last 60 or so years, I don't see how any of it was remotely possible. And if it somehow was, I'm pretty sure one thing didn't change from its small size, and if you can guess what it is; you get a silver star. Hint, hint, it rhymes with chick. And if you still can't guess then either you're slow or I've got a dirty mind..
Probably the latter ;)
I was very upset by something else, as well. Cam was only in about twenty pages of the book! He was the best character for me in this whole novel and he only ever made very short, cameo, appearances. Even then, Daniel was trying to avoid him at all costs when he did pop up, so he barely talks at all in this novel. She essentially destroys his character and turns him into this:
Hey, I'm Cam, I'm cool. Look at me! I'm leaning against a tree!
Hey look I'm leaning against a house!
Hey, I'm getting married! But awwww, I didn't!
Hey, guess what I'm doing again? Leaning against a house!
And it's kind of sad, because he was still my favorite character in the whole book even with the character degradation. He was the only one, when he did sparsely talk, that actually made a slight amount of sense.
Oh, and the whole twist about him being Daniel's brother? What the hell was that? Kate never really even explained it well! She just said; hey, they're brothers, and left us readers to fend for ourselves. When she did try to explain she used about three teeny tiny paragraphs on the whole brotherhood reveal and then had two really short scenes where they were still all lovey dovey bromance with each other, thinking that that would be enough, but it wasn't. It definitely wasn't. She also doesn't spend any time with their backstory, how they were together in heaven, zilch, zero, nada. Come on, Kate! If you're not going to spend time on something that's as big of a deal as you're trying to make it (even though ALL angels are related but whatever), don't even try it!
And Bill! I know some people say that they liked him and he was a good surprise, but, again, she never explained any of his behavior: the turning into other people, only being visible to Luce, etc. Luce never questions him or his motives, which made him very frustrating especially when we find out that He's Lucifer! I mean what?! His attitude, especially being a seamstress doesn't match what I thought of him at all! He's like a gay Lucifer! "Hey, while I'm saying all of my evil plans to you, you should totally not go with that outfit at all, it soooo clashes" No. I know he's not supposed to reveal his full personality to Luce, but Kate doesn't even give us any hints to who he is, so it's such a 360 turnaround that I couldn't fully get into it. I knew he was a bad guy that much was obvious, but did she have to make that big of a jump? And his "big reaveal?" gah. The only thing big about that was the enormity in the fail of describing him. It didn't make me scared, or give me any kind of shivers, I actually giggled a little bit. Poor guy probably became who he was because nobody up in heaven would produce his newest line of togas/robes because of how butt-ugly he was. You know those fashion types, always holding a grudge.
I kind of agree with God, it IS a little much.
And all of the other smaller characters in each of her past lives? They were very cookie-cutter characters. They didn't make me feel anything, they were never memorable; she didn't describe them well at all. If anything, they detracted from Luce's past lives. I know that she didn't spend a lot of time in each past, but if she has made those small characters better, I think I would have gotten more involved in the novel than I actually did. They just weren't good character foils due to, again, the lack of description. And don't even get me started on Miles. I can see that "lurve" triangle coming from a mile away, even though he was only in about two pages of the book. And Lilith? I say to her," go , girl!" Yes, Kate screwed up how Lilith ACTUALLY I guess you could say "broke up with Adam", but she was the only one with enough of a spine to actually defy the angels. Do I actually see a little bit of feminism, here? Honestly, that's what I think Luce should have done with Daniel in the first place; just curse his ass! But we all know that that didn't happen and now we're stuck with lots more lust. *sigh*
Oh, and I thought that it was just hilarious that we pretty much read over four-hundred pages of "love", but we still never get any answers! Really I was just giggling because nothing is ever explained, ever. The whole reason I stuck around the last hundred pages was to see the scene when Daniel and Luce first met but we never get to see that! Luce would repeatedly complain talk about how she didn't know why Daniel loved her so much. I mean, what is the more obvious solution to that then justgo back to the freaking beginning! All of this makes me wonder the million-dollar question: what exactly was the point of this book? All we read is her running around time with no real sense. Whoop-de-doo, Kate. I really needed to know about fashionistas, spontaneous combustion, and depressed people. Just get to the meat of the story and stop skirting around the edges!
But I digress.
So anyways, in the end, I was really hoping that this book would be better than it was, but it turned out to be a disappointment for me.
Why did I rate it two stars instead of one? I guess there were still moments that were cute and touching like the funeral and cliff scenes, but you had to dig so hard for them through the rest of the crap that when they did finally pop up, they weren't as heartfelt anymore. Whether or not you believe me, this was my favorite of the whole series; I was honestly hoping that it would turn out better than it did. I am going to read Rapture because of the big difference between her first and third book; who knows, maybe I will even rate the next one three stars since it IS the last book and she will, whether she wants to or not, have to give us all of the answers I've been waiting for.
Imagine the huge dude as Kate and the the guy with the rain as me, the book buyer who got her money stolen. Poor me. Stupid Kate.
