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jonnieraj's review against another edition
3.0
Spoilers ahead!
This book would be so much better in my opinion if the authors didn't make some of the weird decisions that they did. The main decision that was interested in at first but now HATE is the reveal of who's Call's soul really belongs to. Looking back on it that revelation had NO POINT except for having "shock value". First off, it was so out of the blue. To my knowledge there was no lead up or foreshadow. Plus, Call's soul once being Maugris basically meant nothing. Nothing came out of it or happened because of it. Hell no one even knows except for the main group. The only thing it did was make Call realize how to defeat a devoured of chaos. In my opinion it doesn't even make sense because no one had seen a devoured of chaos before hand and that was so heavily implied. This helped to foreshadow Alex's transformation and make it more impactful but now that just doesn't matter. Also, if it happened before how would people just forget? I know it was a long time ago but how would that not be a HUGE deal at the time. Plus the whole Maugris thing makes Constantine so much less important. They tried use it to explain why Constantine didn't bring Jericho back to life but it's the same reason Call and Alex tried on dead animals at first- so they wouldn't mess it up. It makes all the parallels between Call and Constantine also completely pointless. It did so little to the point that I have no idea why the authors decided to include it.
Another thing I had an issue with was the decision to bring Alex back in the end. I wanted Aaron to be alove because I loved his character but, Call bringing him back in Alex's body made no sense. The whole lesson he learned in the last book was that he shouldn't play with death and that it should be final. Plus Aaron had a complete 180. At the end of the last book he told Call that he was supposed to be dead and that Call was destined to be the hero not him. Aaron had literally come to acceptance with it. And then in this book in Call's head he just casually drops the bomb that he wants a body to come back to life for real. It just made no sense. And then at the end Rufus is like why do all my students try and play God? They respond basically by saying because they can and that everyone tests the limits of their magic. But other people test their limits by making air movies not raising the dead. Rufus pointed out they were arrogant to do what they did and then was like OK whatever. How can they have no repercussion for raising the dead?
Now onto the smaller things... what happened to the prophecy? Like that was such a big thing at first. And then we finally learned who was what: Call was already dead, Aaron was going to die, which means Tamara was supposed to fail. Like I don't know she might have failed at small things before but I didn't notice anything huge. Another small thing, why is there so much randomness in Jasper's love life and why do we keep having to hear about it. Him dating Celia was out of the blue but in this book I was like I guess they're gonna get back together now. But then he got with Gwenda for some reason??? There was no reason for that to happen at all. It was so pointless. I'm pretty sure no one reading this or anyone in the book cares about Jasper's love life. Why did they have him move on from Celia after complaining about it for SO LONG.
I did like the ending from the fight with Alex to the parallel to the ending of book one. The only thing in the ending that confused me was the weird sentence or two that said something seemed off about Aaron and that Call doubted him for a second. What was the point of that if this is the end of the series? Everything before that point was showing that Aaron was weirdly himself and didn't care that he was in the body of the man who murdered him. It seems like this book series was supposed to be continued which would explain the weird Aaron doubt and the last minute reveal about Call's soul. The thing is the from what I looked up the authors have no intention of continuing the story at the moment. Why would you purposely leave such an open ending and have no plans or desires to continue it? In the end there was also no moral to the story or lesson which I thought was supposed to be pretty important especially in kids books to teach them. The only lesson I saw was "Don't play god and think about whether you should do something before doing it". But this lesson does not go with what happened at all because they played god and it completely worked out with no repercussions. You could say Aaron being stuck in Alex's body (the dude who straight up murdered him) is a punishment enough. I may have agreed with this if it seemed like any of the others cared about that in the slightest.
My main disappointment with this end is the fact that it doesn't seem like it should be the end considering all of the loose ends. I did enjoy this series and it certainly had some really interesting ideas but there were just so many weird writing decisions in it. It's disappointing because this series as a whole could have been so much better so easily.
Also what did they do to my boy and the number one father, Allastair?? Why did they have to hurt me so?
This book would be so much better in my opinion if the authors didn't make some of the weird decisions that they did. The main decision that was interested in at first but now HATE is the reveal of who's Call's soul really belongs to. Looking back on it that revelation had NO POINT except for having "shock value". First off, it was so out of the blue. To my knowledge there was no lead up or foreshadow. Plus, Call's soul once being Maugris basically meant nothing. Nothing came out of it or happened because of it. Hell no one even knows except for the main group. The only thing it did was make Call realize how to defeat a devoured of chaos. In my opinion it doesn't even make sense because no one had seen a devoured of chaos before hand and that was so heavily implied. This helped to foreshadow Alex's transformation and make it more impactful but now that just doesn't matter. Also, if it happened before how would people just forget? I know it was a long time ago but how would that not be a HUGE deal at the time. Plus the whole Maugris thing makes Constantine so much less important. They tried use it to explain why Constantine didn't bring Jericho back to life but it's the same reason Call and Alex tried on dead animals at first- so they wouldn't mess it up. It makes all the parallels between Call and Constantine also completely pointless. It did so little to the point that I have no idea why the authors decided to include it.
Another thing I had an issue with was the decision to bring Alex back in the end. I wanted Aaron to be alove because I loved his character but, Call bringing him back in Alex's body made no sense. The whole lesson he learned in the last book was that he shouldn't play with death and that it should be final. Plus Aaron had a complete 180. At the end of the last book he told Call that he was supposed to be dead and that Call was destined to be the hero not him. Aaron had literally come to acceptance with it. And then in this book in Call's head he just casually drops the bomb that he wants a body to come back to life for real. It just made no sense. And then at the end Rufus is like why do all my students try and play God? They respond basically by saying because they can and that everyone tests the limits of their magic. But other people test their limits by making air movies not raising the dead. Rufus pointed out they were arrogant to do what they did and then was like OK whatever. How can they have no repercussion for raising the dead?
Now onto the smaller things... what happened to the prophecy? Like that was such a big thing at first. And then we finally learned who was what: Call was already dead, Aaron was going to die, which means Tamara was supposed to fail. Like I don't know she might have failed at small things before but I didn't notice anything huge. Another small thing, why is there so much randomness in Jasper's love life and why do we keep having to hear about it. Him dating Celia was out of the blue but in this book I was like I guess they're gonna get back together now. But then he got with Gwenda for some reason??? There was no reason for that to happen at all. It was so pointless. I'm pretty sure no one reading this or anyone in the book cares about Jasper's love life. Why did they have him move on from Celia after complaining about it for SO LONG.
I did like the ending from the fight with Alex to the parallel to the ending of book one. The only thing in the ending that confused me was the weird sentence or two that said something seemed off about Aaron and that Call doubted him for a second. What was the point of that if this is the end of the series? Everything before that point was showing that Aaron was weirdly himself and didn't care that he was in the body of the man who murdered him. It seems like this book series was supposed to be continued which would explain the weird Aaron doubt and the last minute reveal about Call's soul. The thing is the from what I looked up the authors have no intention of continuing the story at the moment. Why would you purposely leave such an open ending and have no plans or desires to continue it? In the end there was also no moral to the story or lesson which I thought was supposed to be pretty important especially in kids books to teach them. The only lesson I saw was "Don't play god and think about whether you should do something before doing it". But this lesson does not go with what happened at all because they played god and it completely worked out with no repercussions. You could say Aaron being stuck in Alex's body (the dude who straight up murdered him) is a punishment enough. I may have agreed with this if it seemed like any of the others cared about that in the slightest.
My main disappointment with this end is the fact that it doesn't seem like it should be the end considering all of the loose ends. I did enjoy this series and it certainly had some really interesting ideas but there were just so many weird writing decisions in it. It's disappointing because this series as a whole could have been so much better so easily.
Also what did they do to my boy and the number one father, Allastair?? Why did they have to hurt me so?
allieskat17's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
lparsons01's review against another edition
4.0
Best one of the series. Good series overall but definitely young- I’d say good for grades 8-12. Young readers who like Harry Potter will like this
kerrycat's review against another edition
5.0
entirely too much kissing (ha ha - and it was a bit surprising who was involved).
a satisfying end to this great series collaboration that just might not be quite an ending.
a satisfying end to this great series collaboration that just might not be quite an ending.
coutures1513's review against another edition
3.0
C'était une fin pas tout à fait satisfaisante de cette série écrite par 2 grands noms. J'ai trouvé que tout se réglait trop facilement et que ce n'était pas un assez gros défi. J'aurais aimé que les personnages peuvent réellement mettre en application ce qu'ils ont appris dans les tomes précédents.
Par contre, je suis contente de comment la série se termine.
Par contre, je suis contente de comment la série se termine.
lilbrown's review against another edition
4.0
Really really good book. Aaron being back and in Call’s head gave me mixed feelings especially in the first half or so of the book but it got better as it went on. I actually really liked Jasper joining the team and and I liked Gwenda joining and it made sense to me because of the whole trying to get away from Jasper and Celia thing and her asking to be apart of the team in an earlier book but she wasn’t mentioned much throughout the books so I understand people being upset or confused as to why she joined. I liked the development between Call and Tamara with them not rushing into their relationship and trying to really understand if it is right for them even though Call loves her. Tamara and Call making out and then Aaron getting Call to stop it because it was awkward for him was kinda funny but also annoying because then Call realised he had to try to avoid thinking anything remotely romantic about Tamara because of him. Also, after Call tells Tamara about Aaron being in his head, you could see that she was always hesitant to do anything to Call or even talk to him about their relationship which made me wonder how that was gonna develop and if she would still like him in the end. Call telling Aaron to unblock the memories in his head when the group got attacked by chaos-ridden was crazy and pretty cool as Call became a lot more powerful and the aftermath of that where he was going through all the past lives memories while bed-ridden was really really interesting and I liked it a lot. Finding out that his soul is actually that of an ancient evil Makar named Maugris who would body-hop between Makars for centuries and was actually many of the evil Makars mentioned in books of the Makars history was insanely cool and interesting to me and a really cool twist to things because I really thought that Constantine was the first to develop that ability only to find out it wasn’t even Constantine. After getting his memories, Call finding out how to defeat a Devoured of Chaos and the whole sequence after was really cool. Alastair and the group going around to get a Devoured of each element and the development that happened between everyone during the trips was really nice. Everything between Call and Tamara during that time was making it seem like Tamara still liked Call but was unsure if it would work out which was annoying at first but then later we do find out that she did always like him and that she couldn’t kiss him because of Aaron being in his head made me understand better and retract most of the annoying feelings I got earlier. The Devoureds have been really cool characters and I really liked them. Alastair deciding to turn himself into a Devoured of Air to help Call with his plan was really sad but also crazy cool for him to do. The meeting with the Assembly where Call brought up their “demands” like keeping Alex alive made me realize what their plan truly was which I ended up being right about. The final battle at the tower was pretty good and Aaron being body-hopped into Alex was cool and I’m fine with that being the closure around Aaron. Anastasia’s death was kinda sad but it was really nice for her to decide to play along with Call’s plan of using her as the scapegoat of her “controlling” Alex to do all the stuff he’s done even though she realized that Call was pretending to care about her being his “mom”. Master Rufus realizing that Aaron was back to life in Alex’s body was worrying considering he was very angry and I was wondering how that would pan out but it seemed to be fine as the three of them passed through the final gate together. Finally, the weird doubt that Call felt when he saw Aaron’s smile after Tamara said no more body-hopping was interesting and made me think that potentially Aaron wasn’t fully himself or that when he got brought back as a Chaos-ridden he started to fear death and is not opposed to body-hopping because of that. So, that promise with Tamara and Call being not 100% left a bit of a twist in the end of the book.
I am not sure if they will ever continue this series with them going to the Collegium or not but, even if they do, I am unsure of what is gonna happen between the group and if Aaron does end up turning evil or not. I kind of do want it to continue to see more development between Call and Tamara and the rest of the group but I also feel like I would not enjoy it as much as I think because I feel like it would just end up being annoying random drama or something that would put twists in their relationships because this book ended in a pretty happy way with no real issues anymore so to continue they would have to throw in a bunch of random stuff.
Overall, verrryy good book that had good development between characters and cool action throughout. I am pretty happy with how the series ended and the only thing I could see for continuing the series would’ve been an epilogue of sorts at the end of this book.
My rating: 8.9/10
I am not sure if they will ever continue this series with them going to the Collegium or not but, even if they do, I am unsure of what is gonna happen between the group and if Aaron does end up turning evil or not. I kind of do want it to continue to see more development between Call and Tamara and the rest of the group but I also feel like I would not enjoy it as much as I think because I feel like it would just end up being annoying random drama or something that would put twists in their relationships because this book ended in a pretty happy way with no real issues anymore so to continue they would have to throw in a bunch of random stuff.
Overall, verrryy good book that had good development between characters and cool action throughout. I am pretty happy with how the series ended and the only thing I could see for continuing the series would’ve been an epilogue of sorts at the end of this book.
My rating: 8.9/10
alexcaddel's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
raclausing's review against another edition
3.0
Rating: 3 1/2
It's been a while since I've read the fourth book and I'm just not as into it as I used to be. I do think it's a pretty good series for middle grade fantasy but overall I think the books got less interesting as the series went on. Maybe one day I'll give the series a re-read but I think for now I'm going to take it off my favorites shelf.
It's been a while since I've read the fourth book and I'm just not as into it as I used to be. I do think it's a pretty good series for middle grade fantasy but overall I think the books got less interesting as the series went on. Maybe one day I'll give the series a re-read but I think for now I'm going to take it off my favorites shelf.
my_life_full_of_stories's review against another edition
4.0
What I loved the most was the characters and the friendship.
It was a good ending to the series.
I'd recommend for young readers!
It was a good ending to the series.
I'd recommend for young readers!
barkjenna's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
It was a good ending. Not sure I agree with all their actions but I feel satisfied with the end