The Calling (Darkness Rising, #2) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Jul 29, 2012 Tash rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult-and-younger, urban-fantasy, read-in-2012, read-in-2024

The second book in Kelley Armstrong’s Darkness Rising trilogy, The Calling, is definitely a victim of the second book in a trilogy curse.
The book picks up right where the first book left off- the children are currently fleeing the forest fire that is threatening their homes. However, it doesn’t take long for danger to once again find the group and so they must work together to reach safety. As a premise, the plot is promising, offering more action and intrigue than the first book, which was one The second book in Kelley Armstrong’s Darkness Rising trilogy, The Calling, is definitely a victim of the second book in a trilogy curse.
The book picks up right where the first book left off- the children are currently fleeing the forest fire that is threatening their homes. However, it doesn’t take long for danger to once again find the group and so they must work together to reach safety. As a premise, the plot is promising, offering more action and intrigue than the first book, which was one of my main complaints for The Gathering. However, in practice, the plot is pretty underwhelming. I found that the plot kept repeating the cat and mouse elements throughout the book, which honestly became quite dull and repetitive once you have experienced it a couple of times.

The characters were also quite underwhelming. I understand that in a YA novel, the children have to be given some agency in order to allow the plot to progress but in the case of The Calling, the children are intelligent because every single adult is utterly stupid and incompetent in their role. This means that every encounter that the children overcome an obstacle, it feels cheap and not something they achieved on their merits. I also personally found Maya quite irritating. In every single encounter, she is the one with the solution, which not only makes the other characters redundant but also makes Maya this perfect person who makes no mistakes. I just found that it got very dull very fast. Still, I did enjoy seeing each character discover their abilities, I just wished they had as many opportunities as Maya to use them.

Overall, The Calling was an OK read. It is clear that the goal of the book is to set up the events for the final novel, The Rising and so the plot in this novel suffers for it. I like the exploration into other supernatural races, I just wished the supporting characters had a chance to shine with Maya, The Calling suffers being the middle book in a trilogy as it tries to set things into motion for the final book, but lacks enough unique events to make itself more engaging than the first book.
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May 30, 2012 Tiffany rated it it was amazing

well! if that wasn't spectacularly intense I don't know what is! I think I was holding my breath for most of the book, but especially at the end! OMG!!!!! ...more

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