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bre_renea's review against another edition
5.0
How is this the last one already? I’m so happy that they are all happy and safe (for now at least). I’m also so happy that we got to see the Genesis kids again and that they are with the Phoenix kids. I’m upset though. I really loved Maya and Rafe. It’s not that I don’t love Daniel, I do. I just wish the book would have at least been longer to kind of ween me off the Maya and Rafe relationship to the Maya and Daniel one. Other than that the book was great.
summerseeds's review against another edition
4.0
Well, I was never a fan of Daniel.... Besides that horrible outcome, if was an excellent read. As always, Armstrong is a master of writing. You can help but feel for the characters and long for the world she has so beautifully created. The pace never slowed. There was always a new twist. A new turn. And I loved how she incorporated characters from the Women of the Otherworld Series and Darkest Powers Trilogy. I'd been waiting for the reappearance of Derek and Chloe! In the end, an excellent read. I recommend the series.
coffeeaddicted1988's review against another edition
5.0
Fast-paced.
Maybe a bit too much?
I’m happy about Maya and Daniel.
Happy with the families reuniting.
But... I wish we could get a volume 4 to see how they escape the Cabal.
Maybe a bit too much?
I’m happy about Maya and Daniel.
Happy with the families reuniting.
But... I wish we could get a volume 4 to see how they escape the Cabal.
fuzypaech's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
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? Yes
4.0
arojo1's review against another edition
5.0
Great ending to the story of Maya, Rafe, Daniel, Corey, etc.
chaneycox's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
crystalstarrlight's review against another edition
1.0
Bullet Review:
That was AWFUL. Running around for 400 billion pages, all the info dumping, all the prolonged action sequences, all the forced romance (because EVERYONE has to tell us about Team Daniel as the two have ZERO chemistry) for THAT SHIT ENDING?!
NO STARS.
Full review to come when I am done doing damage to this waste of paper.
Full Review:
After the events of "The Calling", Maya, Daniel and Corey are in Vancouver on the run. They try to track down help and end up accidentally in contact with Ashton "Ash", Maya's brother. They run around some more, then decide the best way to get help is to drag back the kids from Darkest Powers, in between going to visit her grandmother (for no reason), going to their funeral (amounts to nothing), getting captured, escaping and on and on and so forth.
At this point, I'm sure people are thinking that I just hate read this trilogy. I did not. I actually liked Darkest Powers. I liked Armstrong. But when I started reading "The Gathering", I was astounded at how paper-thin the plot was. How forced the character interactions were. How lame the romance was. And it never got better than what I saw in "The Gathering". Now that I've finished the trilogy, I don't know whether to laugh maniacally or burst into tears.
I was never a fan of the characters; I thought they were all pretty meh. Sure, I appreciate how Maya is way more independent than, say, Bella Swan or most other YA "heroines". But this book doesn't endear me more to any of the characters we've supposedly gotten to know better. All the characters seem to be variations of "snarky teen". Maya...Rafe...Corey...Hayley...Ashton. Oh god, Ashton! What an obnoxious p@#$%. I hated how he was so overprotective and creepy for a sister he just barely met. Stop policing Maya's actions, a-hole. What characters aren't "snarky teens" are just so boring: Daniel. Nicole. Even the reappearance of the Darkest Powers kids can't save the book (and if you are reading to see them: don't), as they seem to be merely caricatures of their former selves. (But even as caricatures, they are STILL better than the characters created for this trilogy.)
What was more obnoxious somehow than the characters themselves was how in this book, Armstrong gave up on Team Rafe and decided to have every character try to promote Team Daniel. Numerous times, from every character, we are told how intimate and close Maya and Daniel are, how they aren't friends, how they read as dating, "Hey, get your boyfriend off me - what do you mean he's not your boyfriend?" - and I'm just tilting my head in bewilderment. I never once read any sort of sexual chemistry between Maya and Daniel, and furthermore, why the flying frak do they have to be romantic partners in the first place? Why is it when a woman shows concern for a male friend, it has to be a romantic relationship? (This is not to say I was Team Rafe, BTW, just that I buy Team Rafe more than Team Daniel.)
But this "show don't tell" is pretty much systematic problem of the entire trilogy. Nothing is learned organically; no one investigates; the information just falls into people's laps like a cat who vomits on you. Need to have Corey find out about his superpower? He does it offscreen and then when there's no action, dumps all the information on Daniel and Maya. Need to fill the audience in on the Darkest Powers events? Infodump from Calvin Antone and Maya relating what she read from the convenient data the author gave her.
Then we have the constant movement, the constant action, as if Armstrong is trying desperately to hide the fact that there isn't enough story to necessitate a 3-book, 300+ page long series. I love action as much as the next girl, but geez, a good 3/4 of the events could have been omitted (such as the romp to visit Maya's grandma), and nothing would have been lost. For instance, the diversion to Grandma's house gave us nothing. They sneak to her house, meet her, learn nothing, meet no new people, get chased back to the mainland. All it does is stretch out the book so it could fill the page quota. That is all.
But the cherry of sorts on this pile of elephant excrement is the absolute crap ending. I can't detail how awful and painful it is, as it would probably be spoilery, but suffice to say: we spend 3 books building to this moment and end up almost exactly where we started. The negotations last one paragraph, and everything is suddenly hunky dory - except for that threat of another trilogy to wrap up what should have been wrapped up here. Meaning, I basically spent all the money on 3 books and the time reading for NOTHING.
No wonder people hate reading! No wonder people only read a book when they are on a plane - I would give up on reading if all I was doing was tuning into one massive infodump after another, with boring characters, forced interactions, endless action scenes, capped off by an ending that made the entire trilogy pointless. Hell, I'm so dejected at the end of this trilogy, I'm halfway to quitting reading myself. And I've basically been reading since second grade.
A while back, I read a book, Arclight, that kinda broke me and my love of reading. It wasn't "terrible", but it was just all the various things about reading that I despised that I kinda wanted to quit reading forever.
This book is worse than that. It's worse, because it was pointless. It's worse, because it tries to conceal its problems with plot and characters with endless action and chase sequences. It's worse because it sets up one relationship with actual chemistry but then uses its characters to TELL us how amazing another one - a virtually platonic one - is.
It's worse because after reading this book, I don't know that I can go back and read any of Armstrong's books.
I don't read to hate books; I don't write reviews to hate on books or authors. I write the above out of frustration and despair. Most of the books I was so sure I'd love, I seem to end up feeling "meh" about or hating. And who wants to do any hobby that they hate?
Please excuse me while I go cry into my pillow.
That was AWFUL. Running around for 400 billion pages, all the info dumping, all the prolonged action sequences, all the forced romance (because EVERYONE has to tell us about Team Daniel as the two have ZERO chemistry) for THAT SHIT ENDING?!
NO STARS.
Full review to come when I am done doing damage to this waste of paper.
Full Review:
After the events of "The Calling", Maya, Daniel and Corey are in Vancouver on the run. They try to track down help and end up accidentally in contact with Ashton "Ash", Maya's brother. They run around some more, then decide the best way to get help is to drag back the kids from Darkest Powers, in between going to visit her grandmother (for no reason), going to their funeral (amounts to nothing), getting captured, escaping and on and on and so forth.
At this point, I'm sure people are thinking that I just hate read this trilogy. I did not. I actually liked Darkest Powers. I liked Armstrong. But when I started reading "The Gathering", I was astounded at how paper-thin the plot was. How forced the character interactions were. How lame the romance was. And it never got better than what I saw in "The Gathering". Now that I've finished the trilogy, I don't know whether to laugh maniacally or burst into tears.
I was never a fan of the characters; I thought they were all pretty meh. Sure, I appreciate how Maya is way more independent than, say, Bella Swan or most other YA "heroines". But this book doesn't endear me more to any of the characters we've supposedly gotten to know better. All the characters seem to be variations of "snarky teen". Maya...Rafe...Corey...Hayley...Ashton. Oh god, Ashton! What an obnoxious p@#$%. I hated how he was so overprotective and creepy for a sister he just barely met. Stop policing Maya's actions, a-hole. What characters aren't "snarky teens" are just so boring: Daniel. Nicole. Even the reappearance of the Darkest Powers kids can't save the book (and if you are reading to see them: don't), as they seem to be merely caricatures of their former selves. (But even as caricatures, they are STILL better than the characters created for this trilogy.)
What was more obnoxious somehow than the characters themselves was how in this book, Armstrong gave up on Team Rafe and decided to have every character try to promote Team Daniel. Numerous times, from every character, we are told how intimate and close Maya and Daniel are, how they aren't friends, how they read as dating, "Hey, get your boyfriend off me - what do you mean he's not your boyfriend?" - and I'm just tilting my head in bewilderment. I never once read any sort of sexual chemistry between Maya and Daniel, and furthermore, why the flying frak do they have to be romantic partners in the first place? Why is it when a woman shows concern for a male friend, it has to be a romantic relationship? (This is not to say I was Team Rafe, BTW, just that I buy Team Rafe more than Team Daniel.)
But this "show don't tell" is pretty much systematic problem of the entire trilogy. Nothing is learned organically; no one investigates; the information just falls into people's laps like a cat who vomits on you. Need to have Corey find out about his superpower? He does it offscreen and then when there's no action, dumps all the information on Daniel and Maya. Need to fill the audience in on the Darkest Powers events? Infodump from Calvin Antone and Maya relating what she read from the convenient data the author gave her.
Then we have the constant movement, the constant action, as if Armstrong is trying desperately to hide the fact that there isn't enough story to necessitate a 3-book, 300+ page long series. I love action as much as the next girl, but geez, a good 3/4 of the events could have been omitted (such as the romp to visit Maya's grandma), and nothing would have been lost. For instance, the diversion to Grandma's house gave us nothing. They sneak to her house, meet her, learn nothing, meet no new people, get chased back to the mainland. All it does is stretch out the book so it could fill the page quota. That is all.
But the cherry of sorts on this pile of elephant excrement is the absolute crap ending. I can't detail how awful and painful it is, as it would probably be spoilery, but suffice to say: we spend 3 books building to this moment and end up almost exactly where we started. The negotations last one paragraph, and everything is suddenly hunky dory - except for that threat of another trilogy to wrap up what should have been wrapped up here. Meaning, I basically spent all the money on 3 books and the time reading for NOTHING.
No wonder people hate reading! No wonder people only read a book when they are on a plane - I would give up on reading if all I was doing was tuning into one massive infodump after another, with boring characters, forced interactions, endless action scenes, capped off by an ending that made the entire trilogy pointless. Hell, I'm so dejected at the end of this trilogy, I'm halfway to quitting reading myself. And I've basically been reading since second grade.
A while back, I read a book, Arclight, that kinda broke me and my love of reading. It wasn't "terrible", but it was just all the various things about reading that I despised that I kinda wanted to quit reading forever.
This book is worse than that. It's worse, because it was pointless. It's worse, because it tries to conceal its problems with plot and characters with endless action and chase sequences. It's worse because it sets up one relationship with actual chemistry but then uses its characters to TELL us how amazing another one - a virtually platonic one - is.
It's worse because after reading this book, I don't know that I can go back and read any of Armstrong's books.
I don't read to hate books; I don't write reviews to hate on books or authors. I write the above out of frustration and despair. Most of the books I was so sure I'd love, I seem to end up feeling "meh" about or hating. And who wants to do any hobby that they hate?
Please excuse me while I go cry into my pillow.