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A review by jujelly
Illusions by Aprilynne Pike
1.0
The only reason I'm even continuing this series is because of the end, and because I'm somewhat curious about what's going to happen, but I'm not going to lie -- this book has tested my limits as to how much teenage bullshit drama I can endure.
There's several stuff that took away the joy of reading this:
1. Laurel. I really don't like that the protagonist is the very reason I dislike the book a lot, but Pike had no business making Laurel absolutely detestable. She is selfish, she is so obnoxious, so self-centered despite for some reason everyone kind of making it out as if she was being selfless (???), and she cannot. for the life of her. keep. her. mouth. shut. The amount of times I have read about her discussing David and Tamani over and over again gave me a brain aneursym.
You might ask me -- hey, Juju, it wasn't that bad, was it? YES. YES, IT WAS. The entire book was seemingly just this stupid love triangle between these characters. It was David this, Tamani that.
I hated, HATED that Laurel was with David, then she couldn't make up her mind about Tamani so she went to him and ALLOWED him to do all the stuff, because she got this fuzzy feeling and doesn't want to rid it, basically cheating on David. Then she gets angry AT HIM EVEN THOUGH HE MAKES HIS STUPID ASS INTENTION SO CLEAR YOU'D HAVE TO BE A LITERAL INFANT NOT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK HE'S DOING AND WHAT HE WANTS. And then HE does what the heck he's supposed to do - which is do all the Yuki stuff (I'll talk about her in the later paragraphs) and Laurel goes all "oh youre hooking up with her now?? you didnt even LOOK at me during the dance while i was with david. how dare you close your eyes and enjoy another girl."
BITCH- okay. I need to breathe. In and out. I cannot believe what I'm reading. I cannot believe what I'm enduring. This shit is the most whiney, attention-seeking little bullshit anyone can do. She makes him jealous, gets angry at her own boyfriend for being jealous for very real and valid reasons, then gets jealous at Tamani for doing his fucking job, and expects both of them to still pant after her because she does not want to lose the longing in their eyes. Because she enjoys being loved by both. Fuck you, Laurel. Fuck you.
I am sick of reading any more of this immature and very, very annoying back and forth. I don't know why the author decided to make that the entire plotline of the book, but I seemingly got nothing out of what initially lead me to read Illusions in the first place.
Everything I learned regarding world-building and Avalon and all the faerie customs was just gone and replaced by this bull right there. You know, it's funny, because when Tamani suddenly appeared at school, I was kind of excited. I actually thought this was gonna go somewhere really cool, and granted, obviously there was gonna be a clash between David and Tamani, but instead -- instead I read through these pages and realised more and more how ridiculously enarmoured they are with Laurel, who is literally not special in any way. I genuinely do not understand why the fuck they like her; why Tamani lets himself be tortured like this.
But let me zoom out really quick and talk about the characters generally really quick:
You know, I kinda liked Tamani. I thought there was going to be more of him on a deeper level, in the sense that I wanted to see some faults, to see some spirit in him. But instead, the author wrote him as this love-sick, passion-ridden guy who wouldn't stop at anything to make Laurel his. Laurel is his entire world. He does not have any other priorities in his life, and it kind of really pisses me off, because I don't feel like they have a history to base it on. They don't have any kind of proper relationship in that way. It just felt really artificial.
Then there's David, and he feels so bland. There is nothing to this guy, no essence. I have no idea what kind of person he is, because the author wrote him out to be one of those guys whose entire personality is fitted to the protagonist. Him and Tamani, they both are there to love Laurel, not becuase they exist as their own person.
Mentioning that -- Chelsea. Literally useless person in this book, in this entire series. What is her point. There is literally no use, no worth to her regarding to the story, because she doesn't bring anything. She's a little bit of drama, and that's it. There is literally nothing I'm getting from her. I don't know who the fuck she is and to be honest, I couldn't care less if she died in a car accident or got eaten by trolls in the next chapter.
Oh yeah, speaking of trolls. ??????????? Remember when they were supposed to be a danger, or to have some sort of conflict going on with the faeries? Yeah, where did that go? We got literally nothing. It was useless "suspense" throughout the chapters (except really, it was only useless love triangles because in the end, the suspense wasn't even fleshed out. Nothing happened). I thought hey, it's gonna be just as magical as the last book, to read more about this world and learn more about the different seasons. But instead, I got this trash.
Now on to Yuki -- she was honestly the most interesting part of the entire story and she didn't even appear that much. We knew nothing of her (because if Laurel had gotten her head out of her ass with all the boys drama, we might have) and yet she was still the best part, and that was because I knew there was a secret with her. She might be the one who ends up having a more complex characterisation, but having read the past three books, I don't believe that this is what is going to happen. Nonetheless, she stays the "highlight".
Then the ending happened, and let me just say that it was a very cheap but lowkey effective way of keeping us interested. Because had that not happened, I would DNF this series right at this point.
There's several stuff that took away the joy of reading this:
1. Laurel. I really don't like that the protagonist is the very reason I dislike the book a lot, but Pike had no business making Laurel absolutely detestable. She is selfish, she is so obnoxious, so self-centered despite for some reason everyone kind of making it out as if she was being selfless (???), and she cannot. for the life of her. keep. her. mouth. shut. The amount of times I have read about her discussing David and Tamani over and over again gave me a brain aneursym.
You might ask me -- hey, Juju, it wasn't that bad, was it? YES. YES, IT WAS. The entire book was seemingly just this stupid love triangle between these characters. It was David this, Tamani that.
I hated, HATED that Laurel was with David, then she couldn't make up her mind about Tamani so she went to him and ALLOWED him to do all the stuff, because she got this fuzzy feeling and doesn't want to rid it, basically cheating on David. Then she gets angry AT HIM EVEN THOUGH HE MAKES HIS STUPID ASS INTENTION SO CLEAR YOU'D HAVE TO BE A LITERAL INFANT NOT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK HE'S DOING AND WHAT HE WANTS. And then HE does what the heck he's supposed to do - which is do all the Yuki stuff (I'll talk about her in the later paragraphs) and Laurel goes all "oh youre hooking up with her now?? you didnt even LOOK at me during the dance while i was with david. how dare you close your eyes and enjoy another girl."
BITCH- okay. I need to breathe. In and out. I cannot believe what I'm reading. I cannot believe what I'm enduring. This shit is the most whiney, attention-seeking little bullshit anyone can do. She makes him jealous, gets angry at her own boyfriend for being jealous for very real and valid reasons, then gets jealous at Tamani for doing his fucking job, and expects both of them to still pant after her because she does not want to lose the longing in their eyes. Because she enjoys being loved by both. Fuck you, Laurel. Fuck you.
I am sick of reading any more of this immature and very, very annoying back and forth. I don't know why the author decided to make that the entire plotline of the book, but I seemingly got nothing out of what initially lead me to read Illusions in the first place.
Everything I learned regarding world-building and Avalon and all the faerie customs was just gone and replaced by this bull right there. You know, it's funny, because when Tamani suddenly appeared at school, I was kind of excited. I actually thought this was gonna go somewhere really cool, and granted, obviously there was gonna be a clash between David and Tamani, but instead -- instead I read through these pages and realised more and more how ridiculously enarmoured they are with Laurel, who is literally not special in any way. I genuinely do not understand why the fuck they like her; why Tamani lets himself be tortured like this.
But let me zoom out really quick and talk about the characters generally really quick:
You know, I kinda liked Tamani. I thought there was going to be more of him on a deeper level, in the sense that I wanted to see some faults, to see some spirit in him. But instead, the author wrote him as this love-sick, passion-ridden guy who wouldn't stop at anything to make Laurel his. Laurel is his entire world. He does not have any other priorities in his life, and it kind of really pisses me off, because I don't feel like they have a history to base it on. They don't have any kind of proper relationship in that way. It just felt really artificial.
Then there's David, and he feels so bland. There is nothing to this guy, no essence. I have no idea what kind of person he is, because the author wrote him out to be one of those guys whose entire personality is fitted to the protagonist. Him and Tamani, they both are there to love Laurel, not becuase they exist as their own person.
Mentioning that -- Chelsea. Literally useless person in this book, in this entire series. What is her point. There is literally no use, no worth to her regarding to the story, because she doesn't bring anything. She's a little bit of drama, and that's it. There is literally nothing I'm getting from her. I don't know who the fuck she is and to be honest, I couldn't care less if she died in a car accident or got eaten by trolls in the next chapter.
Oh yeah, speaking of trolls. ??????????? Remember when they were supposed to be a danger, or to have some sort of conflict going on with the faeries? Yeah, where did that go? We got literally nothing. It was useless "suspense" throughout the chapters (except really, it was only useless love triangles because in the end, the suspense wasn't even fleshed out. Nothing happened). I thought hey, it's gonna be just as magical as the last book, to read more about this world and learn more about the different seasons. But instead, I got this trash.
Now on to Yuki -- she was honestly the most interesting part of the entire story and she didn't even appear that much. We knew nothing of her (because if Laurel had gotten her head out of her ass with all the boys drama, we might have) and yet she was still the best part, and that was because I knew there was a secret with her. She might be the one who ends up having a more complex characterisation, but having read the past three books, I don't believe that this is what is going to happen. Nonetheless, she stays the "highlight".
Then the ending happened, and let me just say that it was a very cheap but lowkey effective way of keeping us interested. Because had that not happened, I would DNF this series right at this point.