I am an avid Roarke fan, and I've even made Eve's mantra of "Bite me" my own... However, this novel felt like a mixture of all of the others in the series. Here are my big questions:
1. Does every murderer need to be from a serial killer? Don't murderers only ever commit one murder?
2. Why would murderers always feel driven to have the same initials? (She has used this over and over and over again.)
3. Why are pocket PC's completely untraceable?
4. Do we need another mystery where a parent is urging a child to commit a massive murder? (She's done several already!)
5. Does every crime have to relate to Eve's past, Eve's dad, and Marlena? Will something new ever happen to Eve and Roarke?
Now, the good parts of this novel?
1. Eve actually invited Louise over and played the matron of honor OK. She even dropped by Louise's for more than a medical consult.
2. We see Jaime in college, so he's still around and getting ready to join the police force.
3. We don't have any arguments about Roarke working on the case--as he's practically an adjunct member of the e-squad.
The language (and use of the F word) was everywhere in this book. Even the 90 year old grandma was dropping the F-bomb. It's a bit over-the-top for me at this point. It's just too much language. The crimes are also much more savage, and the motive this time was really weak. The only way I'd have bought the murderer's motive is if the child had been dropped on his head as a small child.
The theme is also repetitive: We are more than a product of what are parents tried to make us... But the murderer in this book isn't! Like Steve Audrey in Sommerset's mystery, the murderer has been groomed and persuaded to murder because a parent encourages the retribution. This isn't "normal" for murderers in "real-life." BTK and Unibomber each had normal families, normal siblings, and weren't groomed to become serial killers by their mother or their father!
I guess I'm ready for Eve to move past the father/mother/mold/made conflict and ready to embrace something less repetitive. I'll buy the next book---as I'm madly in love with Roarke and Eve---but I'm ready for something new. The old is just old for me. If CSI can find two new crimes each week (and in Las Vegas, New York, and Miami!) I'm pretty sure Eve can find another kind of murder to investigate!
05 November 2009
04 November 2009
Alyson Noel's The Immortals Series
Once again, girl meets boy, boy turns out to be immortal, girl falls in love with boy, something more-than-mortal keeps them apart...
Alyson Noel's series starts with Evermore: The Immortals which I picked up with its sequel Blue Moon at Costco. The release in paperback at the same time for a reduced price was in anticipation of book 3, Shadowland coming in hardback on November 17, 2009.
The good? It's only a bit unique. It has elements of Moonlight (the vampire show from 2007) with the ex-wife being very Corraline in flavor; it has elements of Tempted by P.C. Cast. Evermore follows the Stephenie Meyer plot feature of being saved by someone who's not mortal, and the immortal is not all good, either. (Edward the perfect = Damen the Immortal... Damen's name harkens to demon...) The immortal theme was in the Cassandra Clare books (City of Glass). I enjoyed Evermore much more than Blue Moon. Evermore had a good start; I liked Ever's name; I wanted to know about the characters and what was unusual... But it definitely wasn't as clever as Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series or the promise of P.C. Cast's early House of Night novels.
The bad? See above. I felt like I could hum all the character's lines, and that I knew based on The City of Glass, bones, etc. where this was heading. It even had Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty in the idea of Summerland. The books also felt very short to me. I finished Blue Moon in under an hour. That's a lot to pay for only an hour! I know I read quickly, but 304 pages should be more than an hour's read! Also, there were scenes from Evermore that seemed to be lifted from other novels entirely. There was the beach showdown scene... and that felt very Twilight bonfire Jacob-vampire-werewolf to me. It reminded me of when Bella jumped off the cliff, too.
For me these books were "meh." I disliked how simplistic Ever was. She was very self-serving and often oddly stupid. I mean, in the end of Blue Moon, she makes a series of incredibly bad decisions. As I was reading it, I wondered, "Really? Who would make these decisions like this? Not anyone *I* know, and I know a lot of teenage girls."
I didn't sign up to have the next in the series rushed to me... so marketing failed in this respect. If I can pick the paperback up at Costco for another song... I might. They were an OK read for Halloween... but nothing to have rush-shipped to me. I'm still on the border for Tempted the new House of Night book in the P.C. Cast world. It has terrible reviews... mine to follow, if it falls into my lap!
Alyson Noel's series starts with Evermore: The Immortals which I picked up with its sequel Blue Moon at Costco. The release in paperback at the same time for a reduced price was in anticipation of book 3, Shadowland coming in hardback on November 17, 2009.
The good? It's only a bit unique. It has elements of Moonlight (the vampire show from 2007) with the ex-wife being very Corraline in flavor; it has elements of Tempted by P.C. Cast. Evermore follows the Stephenie Meyer plot feature of being saved by someone who's not mortal, and the immortal is not all good, either. (Edward the perfect = Damen the Immortal... Damen's name harkens to demon...) The immortal theme was in the Cassandra Clare books (City of Glass). I enjoyed Evermore much more than Blue Moon. Evermore had a good start; I liked Ever's name; I wanted to know about the characters and what was unusual... But it definitely wasn't as clever as Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series or the promise of P.C. Cast's early House of Night novels.
The bad? See above. I felt like I could hum all the character's lines, and that I knew based on The City of Glass, bones, etc. where this was heading. It even had Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty in the idea of Summerland. The books also felt very short to me. I finished Blue Moon in under an hour. That's a lot to pay for only an hour! I know I read quickly, but 304 pages should be more than an hour's read! Also, there were scenes from Evermore that seemed to be lifted from other novels entirely. There was the beach showdown scene... and that felt very Twilight bonfire Jacob-vampire-werewolf to me. It reminded me of when Bella jumped off the cliff, too.
For me these books were "meh." I disliked how simplistic Ever was. She was very self-serving and often oddly stupid. I mean, in the end of Blue Moon, she makes a series of incredibly bad decisions. As I was reading it, I wondered, "Really? Who would make these decisions like this? Not anyone *I* know, and I know a lot of teenage girls."
I didn't sign up to have the next in the series rushed to me... so marketing failed in this respect. If I can pick the paperback up at Costco for another song... I might. They were an OK read for Halloween... but nothing to have rush-shipped to me. I'm still on the border for Tempted the new House of Night book in the P.C. Cast world. It has terrible reviews... mine to follow, if it falls into my lap!
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