A review by littlbooknerd
The Invasion, by Peadar Ó Guilín
2.0
✩✩.75/5
“Plenty come back from the Grey Land with a taste for blood. But any kind of horror will do that for you. It takes decades to breed a war out of a people that went through it.”
I read The Call about a year and a half ago and loved it. A survival story about kids being hunted by evil faeries in Ireland? That was definitely a story for me. Ever since I read that book I've been looking forward to reading the sequel. Well, I read it.
What a disappointment.
The Invasion turned out to be the exact opposite of what I envisioned the next part of the story would look like. With the way the previous book ended, there was so much potential for The Invasion to be amazing. Sadly, for me, it was anything but.
Going into it, I expected a story that was more focused on Nessa and Anto. They had both gone through so much in the previous book with surviving the Call and being transformed by the Sidhe, so I think I speak for all of us when I say that they (and we, as readers) were robbed of a *true* happy ending.
The synopsis of the story leads us to believe that during The Invasion, Nessa and Anto's relationship would face various obstacles and trials and that they would have to fight to stay together, all while trying to stay alive among an evil faerie invasion. But, in reality, they only spent like 4% of the book in each other's company??? I don't get why they were kept separated for the near entirety of the book, and the fact that they were was highly irritating to me.
The beginning of the story was great (also the only part of the book I liked). I thought it was so interesting that Nessa was under investigation for being a traitor given the suspicious way she survived her Call when she clearly should have died. That's literally the only part of the book that made sense to me. But, I don't get why Nessa never told anyone how she got her fire powers. She was asked countless times if she was the traitor and if she had just told the truth from the beginning that Connor's the one who made a deal with the Sidhe to spare her so he could be the one to kill her, I'm sure at least one person would have believed her. It would have saved her so much trouble and allowed her to be reunited with Anto.
The next thing that annoyed me was how pointless Anto's expedition with the soldiers was. I knew that there would be a Sidhe invasion in the story because of the book's title, but I think it's frustrating that it ended up being 90% of the plot when the synopsis advertised it as being more relationship-oriented.
The rest of the plot ended up being Nessa running away from the Sidhe, Anto sleeping with what's her face (so annoyed that I don't remember that character's name) because he felt so *hurt and betrayed* by Nessa being a traitor, Nessa putting an end to the invasion and defeating the bad guy and finally Nessa and Anto having a sort of happy ending.
The plot's focus was clearly invested in the wrong place. Although the idea of a full on Sidhe invasion sounded really awesome to me after the way the first book ended, this book felt more like a war story to me and glossed over all the important parts we should have gotten to read. The ending as well as other parts of the book felt rushed while others dragged on and on, which made for really weird pacing.
I was sometimes bored, sometimes annoyed and only very rarely thinking that I was actually enjoying this story. Although The Call was an amazing read, its sequel was sadly not for me.
“Plenty come back from the Grey Land with a taste for blood. But any kind of horror will do that for you. It takes decades to breed a war out of a people that went through it.”
I read The Call about a year and a half ago and loved it. A survival story about kids being hunted by evil faeries in Ireland? That was definitely a story for me. Ever since I read that book I've been looking forward to reading the sequel. Well, I read it.
What a disappointment.
The Invasion turned out to be the exact opposite of what I envisioned the next part of the story would look like. With the way the previous book ended, there was so much potential for The Invasion to be amazing. Sadly, for me, it was anything but.
Going into it, I expected a story that was more focused on Nessa and Anto. They had both gone through so much in the previous book with surviving the Call and being transformed by the Sidhe, so I think I speak for all of us when I say that they (and we, as readers) were robbed of a *true* happy ending.
The synopsis of the story leads us to believe that during The Invasion, Nessa and Anto's relationship would face various obstacles and trials and that they would have to fight to stay together, all while trying to stay alive among an evil faerie invasion. But, in reality, they only spent like 4% of the book in each other's company??? I don't get why they were kept separated for the near entirety of the book, and the fact that they were was highly irritating to me.
The beginning of the story was great (also the only part of the book I liked). I thought it was so interesting that Nessa was under investigation for being a traitor given the suspicious way she survived her Call when she clearly should have died. That's literally the only part of the book that made sense to me. But, I don't get why Nessa never told anyone how she got her fire powers. She was asked countless times if she was the traitor and if she had just told the truth from the beginning that Connor's the one who made a deal with the Sidhe to spare her so he could be the one to kill her, I'm sure at least one person would have believed her. It would have saved her so much trouble and allowed her to be reunited with Anto.
The next thing that annoyed me was how pointless Anto's expedition with the soldiers was. I knew that there would be a Sidhe invasion in the story because of the book's title, but I think it's frustrating that it ended up being 90% of the plot when the synopsis advertised it as being more relationship-oriented.
The rest of the plot ended up being Nessa running away from the Sidhe, Anto sleeping with what's her face (so annoyed that I don't remember that character's name) because he felt so *hurt and betrayed* by Nessa being a traitor, Nessa putting an end to the invasion and defeating the bad guy and finally Nessa and Anto having a sort of happy ending.
The plot's focus was clearly invested in the wrong place. Although the idea of a full on Sidhe invasion sounded really awesome to me after the way the first book ended, this book felt more like a war story to me and glossed over all the important parts we should have gotten to read. The ending as well as other parts of the book felt rushed while others dragged on and on, which made for really weird pacing.
I was sometimes bored, sometimes annoyed and only very rarely thinking that I was actually enjoying this story. Although The Call was an amazing read, its sequel was sadly not for me.