Hell or High Water (Gemini, #3) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Dec 10, 2017 Katyana rated it did not like it

Shelves: fantasy, tstl, uf, w-t-f, shapeshifters, series-i-dropped-like-a-hot-rock

It just didn't work for me.

Firstly, there were some personality changes that seemed inconsistent. Like ... the heroine was suddenly really TSTL. That hasn't been the case throughout the series, and I don't know why it was here. She was not seeing obvious, anvil-to-the-head things ((view spoiler)). She was making terrible decisions about Charybdis... and leaving everyone constantly exposed to attack. I not impressed. This is not the Cam Ellis of books 1 a It just didn't work for me.

Firstly, there were some personality changes that seemed inconsistent. Like ... the heroine was suddenly really TSTL. That hasn't been the case throughout the series, and I don't know why it was here. She was not seeing obvious, anvil-to-the-head things ((view spoiler)). She was making terrible decisions about Charybdis... and leaving everyone constantly exposed to attack. I not impressed. This is not the Cam Ellis of books 1 and 2.

Graeson was more or less sidelined. The whole arc felt bandaided together from unbelievably thin happenstance. (view spoiler)[Charybdis walked into Ayer and in an instant formed his entire dastardly plan with Cam at the center of it? Really? So not much of a planner, this guy? He just crossed over and figured he would wing it, and happened to trip over the one person who had all the knowledge about someone who just happened to be a perfect target for him? Really?

Or how about Cam's parents? I honestly just can't even with how stupid this plotline is. Okay. So. Lori is alive. And I get that being around her made Cam sick, so it's clear that they had to be separated. Okay. So in everyone's minds, the best idea was to abandon a grieving 8 year old without explanation??? Are you fucking kidding me? NOTHING excuses what her family did. Nothing. I get having to take Lori away. But who in fuck abandons their 8 year old? They just dropped her off at Aunt Dot's for a weekend and never came back, is what Cam says. And her whole fucking family knows that she blames herself for Lori's "death" - her Aunt says that's why she joined the Conclave, to punish herself for Lori - but they decide not to tell her that they found Lori, and she's not dead... Instead, they are just going to let her drown herself in guilt for her whole life. And even worse, that guilt is underscored by her parents abandoning her. She believes - as does Theo and Issac - that they left because they couldn't stand seeing the girl who reminded them of their favorite, dead daughter. Her parents - and Dot, who knew all about this - could not have handled this worse. It is so fucking stupid that I just cannot even process it as a story point. When she finds her parents with Lori, she's hurt over the betrayal, but gets over it almost instantly. And then they decide they can all stay in touch with phone calls and stuff... maybe short visits a couple times a year, since yeah, it makes her sick to be around Lori. Wow, geniuses! It's like you could have been doing that the whole fucking time, rather than abandoning a child to live with the guilt of a lost sister, ON TOP OF the heartbreak of her parents not loving her enough to stay with her and help her heal. (hide spoiler)]

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

So yeah. I really didn't like it. And that's not even getting into the ending, which was ridiculous. Not the resolution on Charybdis, but (view spoiler) ...more

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