The Laeduin (Disharmony, #2) in Aussie Readers

Jan 29, 2013 Bree T rated it liked it

Shelves: arc, aww2013

Finally the psychopath, the empath and the genius are all together. Together they are stronger than they are apart. But not everyone is happy about their reunion, especially their own mother. Not allowed to approach them directly, she is forced to use others to do her bidding in order to seek to gain access to each of them. She wants them to come into their powers, to understand what they are capable of, but more than that she wants to control them.

From Jake’s castle in Lake Geneva, they are tak Finally the psychopath, the empath and the genius are all together. Together they are stronger than they are apart. But not everyone is happy about their reunion, especially their own mother. Not allowed to approach them directly, she is forced to use others to do her bidding in order to seek to gain access to each of them. She wants them to come into their powers, to understand what they are capable of, but more than that she wants to control them.

From Jake’s castle in Lake Geneva, they are taken somewhere unbelievable, somewhere that will change the way in which all of them view the world. Luke, the psychopath doesn’t adapt well to their new surroundings. Samantha is worried about the people she left behind. Of all of them, Jake adapts the best. He’s eager to learn – he is the genius after all. And where they are is possessed of a depth of knowledge and technology that he couldn’t even dream about. It is he who seeks to discover the truth about the Telling. Written are their three destines – the powers of the psychopath, the empath and the genius. The powers that they will come into and that which they will control. As the three scatter across to world to become pawns for those that would abuse their power for evil, it is Jake who discovers that they must come back together.

The Laeduin is the second novel in the Disharmony trilogy and things pick up almost where we left off, in the castle in Switzerland. The psychopath and the empath have come together with the genius, the three parts of the prophecy. Jake is 14 and working on the sort of research that most people would barely be able to comprehend. He deals in science and math, things that make sense and have logical answers. The people that explode into his life and claim to be his siblings turn all of that upside down. It isn’t long until Jake is seeing things he wouldn’t ever have believed possible. He’s finding out that people aren’t who he thought they were. Aren’t even what he thought they were.

But Jake has to get over his sense of betrayal because he quickly realises that he’s going to need all of his superior intelligence where they are. He doesn’t take things personally, like Luke, who struggles to connect to others and can’t really feel much in the way of emotion and he doesn’t spend a great deal of time thinking about those in his previous ‘normal’ life like Samantha, because he really doesn’t have anyone to think about. Only his uncle, and he’s a busy man often traveling and away from home. Jake uses his intelligence to learn more about their situation – he’s the only one of the three who actually wants to find out about the prophecy and what their destinies are. You get a lot of answers in this book (thankfully!) especially towards the end. Jake’s dedication is the reader’s reward.

I found the first novel very interesting, laying the groundwork and I was very much looking forward to this one to see where the story went. The Laeduin is a bit of an up and down ride – at times it’s quite slow and gets a bit bogged down in conversations and events that seem mundane and unimportant and merely filler. And then there’ll be a reveal that accelerates the plot forward greatly and I can’t wait to find out what is going to happen next. Almost immediately after the three come together, Giarratano seeks to separate them. At first this seems merely like added drama but the reasoning behind it makes a lot of sense and also gives further insight into the three characters. The way in which they react to their situation is telling and doesn’t feel at all contrived. However the pacing of the novel is a little slow at times and a bit misleading. There’s more happening than you realise until you finish the novel and have time to reflect on it and bring all of the pieces of information together that you’ve been given. I think that it’s a particularly cleverly written book (and series) because the information is given out in ways so that at times you’re not even aware of it. But the downside of this is that sections of the book can feel like filler, like you’re plodding through certain scenes that have no real place. A lot of the first part of the book felt like this – it wasn’t until Jake began to put things together later in the book and revealed his findings that I began to think about things a little more and reflect on the earlier portion of the book. I wish I’d re-read the first book before I read this one – the long gaps between them made my memory patchy and it took a while for my brain to kick in to gear and remember who everyone was and what had happened in the first book. This would probably be a series where it’d be beneficial to read them all together, rather than spaced a year apart!

What I like about this series is that I can’t really tell where it’s going to go next. Most final novels in a trilogy, everything has been set up and you know you’re going in for a battle of some description. I know all (or most) of the players in this one but I don’t know how it’s going to unfold and in what way. The created world here is so rich and diverse and expansive that it’s almost impossible to guess what might be coming. But I do think that some people might be alienated by the way in which the information is delivered, amid much other less important scenes and filler. It’s not a book that keeps you utterly gripped from beginning to end. But if you can get through the first part, the second half is more than worth it. ...more

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