Reviews

Arrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey

burningupasun's review

2.0

Setting/World Building: 4/5.
Main Character: 4/5
Other Characters: 3/5. Kind of disappointed by the lack of depth to the villains.
Plot: 2/5
Writing: 2/5
Triggering/Issues: 2/5. Character death, but even worse, rape followed by torture (of the sexual sadist variety). Also triggering is the way the aftermath is handled (or rather, the way it isn't really handled at all).

AVERAGED TOTAL: 3.1 out of 5, rounded to 3. 2.8 out of 5, rounded down to 2, after a few days had passed and I was still mad.



Oh, how this book disappointed me. I think one of the worst parts about this book is that it HAD all the makings of what could have been a great book. The previous two set up Talia coming into her own, and I thought here we were going to get the sort of climax, the real big test of her powers and strengths. There were political machinations and tensions between two realms, and in my head I could see it building into this epic battle where Talia has to use her powers to help them all save the day. But instead... Instead the book hit me with three whammies in a row and then it was all downhill from there.

So what happened? Well it all started with...

Spoiler

Kris' death. That hit as hard as it should have, but I was okay with it, I was. Sometimes, the good people have to die and I think it's important to show that. But then, literally a page or two later, Talia gets captured, stripped, raped, beaten, thrown into a cell. She's then tortured by the 'baddies' of the book (who were unfortunately very one-dimensional so far), who of course are sexual sadists who get off on torturing her, which feels to her (in her own words) like being raped all over again.

And it never gets better, it really is all downhill from there. As I was reading it, I thought, the only way this could be salvaged is if it was at least used. If Talia used it to harden, to become stronger, maybe to try and get her revenge and go to the brink of going overboard, like they'd hinted she had been in the past, only to stop herself and be the better person, etc etc. But none of that happened. In fact, Talia is bafflingly barely present in the second half of the book. She's rescued by Dirk, who "fetches" her using his magic. After that, literally all she does is tell people what happened and get healed. This massive battle passes with her only influence being helping link some people together so they can kill a mage. I mean sure, she's there, but she's not there in the way she should be. These are Talia's books! It should be about her coming full circle and becoming the person she was Chosen to be! In the end, the "drama" over the enemy isn't even wrapped up. I assume that's to carry over into the next trio of books but frankly, it seemed kind of half-assed, like she just cut them off so she could end with the wedding.

Even worse, the rape and it's effects on her are literally never handled. She off-handledly mentions to Skif once that being touched by men affects her, and then literally two pages later it's a week or so later and poof, she's magically mind-healed and fine with getting married and having sex with her husband, tra la la. Compared to how the author at least tactfully handled Talia's issues with abusive men in the first book, I was SO disappointed by how it was handled in this one. It was so pointless, so why did she even need to get raped to begin with? It didn't affect anything, it didn't do anything, it was another case of someone pointlessly using rape as some way of getting across how "horrifyingly evil" the villain is, and then just sweeping it under the rug!

To be honest, it was so infuriating that I can't even spend much time on the other things that bugged me, like the stupid forced pseudo-love triangle that was really just the cause of all three of them thinking things and then never talking to each other. I hate when plots are like that. If your plot is only continued along by you making sure the characters just silence their thoughts and don't say anything even though they know they should, than it's dumb.

After the first two novels, which I loved so much, reading this one was a major disappointment best summed up by this gif:



Just imagine me happily opening this book and then realizing what's inside. That's pretty much exactly what happened... and to be honest, I'm not even sure how it got to 3 stars... probably because I do still like the world and the characters, I just really, really hate what was done to them and the plot. So, so disappointed.

ETA: After 2 days, I was still SO UPSET about the book and what happened, that I gave in and knocked it down to 2 stars, which frankly, it should have been the whole time.

joabroda's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

4.0

The last installment in Valdemar: Heralds of Valdemar series and what an ending it was. The beginning was a bit slow but the tension built until the very ending.

Talia is back at court as Queen's Herald.  There is much intrigue and gossip floating the court and she is inches from solving the mystery of who the culprit is when a proposal for Elsbeth's (the heir) hand in marriage arrives. A union with this Kingdom would result in a great ally.  Talia and Kris are sent off to the neighboring Kingdom to re-con the Kingdom and Prince, before The Queen and Heir arrive to accept or refuse the proposal.

Within hours of their arrival in the Kingdom chaos ensues and Talia and Kris are taken prisoner by the evil Prince and his mages. Unknown to the Prince, Talia's Companion gets away to warn the Queen.  From that point on there is nothing but heartbreak and evil for Talia

froggoh's review

I can't deal with SA here. And I was reading this just to finish the trilogy at this point. It was easily the weakest one even before the scene that made me quit.

audiobebop's review

1.0

Arrow's Fall lacks depth in its villains, suffers from plot holes, and feels rushed. It failed to develop a compelling ending. There were a lot of wtfs for me. I feel like I wasted my time reading this trilogy because of this ending.

nicole_the_bookworm's review

5.0

I love this book so much. To be honest I was dreading reading it, just a little bit, because I knew what was going to happen, and I didn't want to be sad - and because of that I took a long time to read it (and took a while to even start this series). This is my first and favourite series by Mercedes Lackey, and I knew how sad and beautiful and lovely this book is, which is why I held off so long on re-reading it. Nevertheless, I love it dearly. 

cilialux's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

branomir's review

4.0

All right, I need to get this review over with. I've been going over this in my head, wondering if I should change the star rating. I'd say this is a solid 3.5 and in my own personal files which uses a different scale I did give this one a lesser rating than the first, but a better one than the second.

Ok, so third book in the series, I can skip over all the good stuff that has remained solid: great world building, great characters (though perhaps too much focus on the main and not enough development for the supporting cast), great lore and magic system, decent plot and great writing. As far as the writing goes, Lackey does have a few epic moments as far as tension building is concerned and some very good set up and follow through.

There were three things however that greatly, and I mean greatly, bothered me:
1) The atrocious love story
2) Pitch black darkness purely for shock value
3) The somewhat anti-climactic none ending

1) The atrocious love story
I mean it was weird in the first one, sucked in the second one and just didn't get much better in this one. How am I supposed to root/feel with a couple that barely spends any time together at all? They love each other "in spite of themselves". Life bonding is just the most unromantic nonsense ever. They literally fell in love at first sight (when she was a kid for f's sake) and...that's it. Every tender or loving moment between them just seems sickly sweet and meaningless because of it. Not to mention there is an added, unnecessary, very predictable angsty love triangle on top of it. Just...why?!!

2) Pitch Black Darkness purely for shock value
This book suddenly took a Grimdark turn and I really don't like Grimdark and wasn't expecting it here. Worse still, it didn't need it.

Spoiler

So after the evil plot is uncovered, things suddenly go bad and when they go bad, they go terribly bad. First Kris and Tantris are killed and this I could deal with. You need some bad things to happen, some stakes to deal with and it all served purpose in the story. But while we are still reeling from that, Talia is dragged to the dungeons, stripped and gang raped! Words fail to describe how upsetting this felt. It was so unnecessary and horrible. The short, matter of fact way in which it was described somehow made it even worse, with no build up or aftermath, I felt gutted. As if that wasn't worse enough, she even gets horribly tortured by perverted villains that gain sexual pleasure from it, so it felt like she was being raped all over again. At this point, all I could do was keep on reading, hoping it would get "better". Now I could have dealt with this is if it served more purpose to the story other than "bad guys are really bad". But it doesn't. Talia doesn't grow or regress as a character, her trauma is mostly kept in the background and then simply magicked away. To make the awful love story worse, they even send Dirk away for Talia to heal. I understand that after such an experience sex and intimacy would be difficult. But supposedly you love your partner for more than that and he should be part of the healing process rather than a hindrance? It seems like we are men first and people second. Just ugh, why was any of this in here?!! There was already death, betrayal and despair. The story did not need it and did not use it.

.

3)The somewhat anti-climactic none ending
So Talia

Spoiler

is pretty much out of commission for the rest of the story. The whole thing with Orthallen wasn't all that exciting, because seriously how did no one believe her up to this point?!

So now the other characters have to step up and

Spoiler

carry the book in the end and the last climactic battle.

As such it becomes a bit of a problem that we've hardly spent any time with them whatsoever. (this also greatly diminished some of Talia's interactions with them in my opinion, particularly Elspeth) Also the fact that the real villains were introduced this late in the story doesn't help either. So the end feels a little rushed, too neatly tied up, not really solves anything (I'm guessing this conflict carries over in the next books of the Valdemar universe) and hardly involves our main character who has been the overwhelming focus up to this point. That's a bit of a problem.

In the end, a decently written trilogy, but certainly not without its issues. Some of the parts were absolutely masterful and others left me scratching my head as to why Lackey decided to go in this direction. From a glance I would guess that there are no more books with Talia as the lead character? If this is true then it definitely feels like more could have been done with this. That being said, my overal experience with Lackey and Valdemar is a positive one. I don't think it'll be for everyone but it is most assuredly worth checking out. Recommend you give it a try if it sounds like something you'd like.

danascully7's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

alessandrawhiting's review

3.0

""

malreynolds111's review

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0