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A review by tammidesta
The Captive, Part II and The Power by L.J. Smith
3.0
The Captive is the best book in The Secret Circle trilogy, so with it starting off this edition, I was totally getting what was good about this series. Unfortunately, The Power starts badly with this ridiculous love-fest for Cassie, which annoyed me to no end and put her firmly into Mary Sue territory (seriously, everybody declares how wonderful she is, even after they find out she's lied and betrayed them, and one character begs for 3 pages to be allowed to date her). Plot-wise, Black John comes back to town, although he was scarier when he remained a bogeyman. He's not used very well in the story - the gang only interact with him once before the final showdown. I think this is where the restricted narration is a hindrance, as everything is told from Cassie's POV. Faye joins forces with Black John and it would have been interesting to see their relationship. I imagine the two of them as being like Faith and the Major from Buffy, but we'll never know.
I did like the final battle and the ending in general, though. I'd guessed the big revelations already - the connection between Cassie and Black John and who the real traitor in the coven was - but I didn't guess at the way all the little details fitted together and it was pretty neat to see things that seemed inconsequential earlier in the trilogy become important. Smith did a similar thing in The Vampire Diaries: The Fury, when it was revealed how much that had happened was Katherine's doing.
So as I suspected, there is an entertaining yarn buried underneath the cliches and the bad-romance-novel writing. It's interesting to me, to go back and read teen books of yesteryear and see what was genuinely good and what was at best, a guilty pleasure. L. J. Smith's books definitely fall into the latter category.
I did like the final battle and the ending in general, though. I'd guessed the big revelations already - the connection between Cassie and Black John and who the real traitor in the coven was - but I didn't guess at the way all the little details fitted together and it was pretty neat to see things that seemed inconsequential earlier in the trilogy become important. Smith did a similar thing in The Vampire Diaries: The Fury, when it was revealed how much that had happened was Katherine's doing.
So as I suspected, there is an entertaining yarn buried underneath the cliches and the bad-romance-novel writing. It's interesting to me, to go back and read teen books of yesteryear and see what was genuinely good and what was at best, a guilty pleasure. L. J. Smith's books definitely fall into the latter category.