From the Bookshelf of Challenge Overload (PNR and UF Edition)…

[close] Ok, where to start? I have read the entire Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman, and I enjoyed it. And if I'm not mistaken they were her first novels. So when I heard she was starting a new series I thought I'd give it a try. What I got was interesting. It's difficult to rate a book, when you liked where it ended up but hated the journey there.

I was pretty clear early on that this book was about Trixa, the narrator, getting vengeance for her younger brother. Along the way there are clues that imply that all things are not what they seem. I picked up on most of them, but couldn't quite figure out what to do with them until later. There are foster brothers that reminded me a lot of the way she wrote Cal & Nik Leandros, which is a really inappropriate thing as it turns out. All the action comes to a head around page 300. The next 40 pages are spent trying to explain all the half truths and long philosophical speeches that had taken place in the previous 300 pages.

I think the reason this book didn't rate higher for me, was the fact that it needed those 40 pages to unwind all the tangled webs and dropped hints from the book. I believe that knowing who and what I was reading about, whose eyes I was seeing through, would have helped me and the story a great deal. I'm not saying give away everything on the first page but the kind of reveal she was going for only really works in movies like Fight Club, Unbreakable or the Usual Suspects. When you are reading a first person narrative you expect to know what the narrator knows, and that was not the case here, hence the 40 pages of explanation.

I still mostly liked the characters, except for Trixa, but that's not uncommon for me to not really care much for the narrator and I didn't hate her, I just didn't really love her. I liked where the characters ended up and the potential awesomeness that will be their journey. I love the questioning of what makes someone good or evil, this is something Rob Thurman had done well in this book and the Cal Leandros series. And I LOVED the little cameo of Robin, because really you can never have enough Robin!

Will I read the next book when it's released? Yes. Will I obsess about it until it comes out. Not even a little bit. I do however look forward to reading the next story now that me and the narrator have truly met and I know what shades her perspective. I also look forward to seeing the growth in some of the characters and how they deal with things the way they are now.