booboohead
Just reactions to books I read. I don't really summarize the book's content, because how hard is it to click on the cover and read the description?
So I just write my response.
The fire sputters in this installment. Repetitive filler in an otherwise gripping series.
I really enjoy this series. I've had a few quibbles with it along the way (the continual repetition of some lines that are, I guess, supposed to heighten tension or to show us what the characters are obsessing over
Who the hell are these guys?
What's in the U-Haul?
but really, just feels like padding. I also dislike how basically every POV character is God's gift to the opposite sex, because pretty much every attractive person flirts with them, and there's so much flirty banter, my God. And, although I really love the banter between Will and Danny, nowadays pretty much the entire crew is bantering in the same way. As if clever banter is an STD or something.
But, you know, overall the series is still pretty great. I have read the installment following this one, so I feel pretty comfortable when I say:
This one was pure filler. You could skip it and it wouldn't really matter. Nothing of any real importance happens.
Sure, we get to see the towns. We get to meet more blue-eyed ghouls. The thing is, we don't really learn anything new that couldn't have been shown in a few short scenes. Basically, it's the same scenario over and over and over: POV character is captured, they make an escape, they get captured again. They get a nose broken. They escape. Bad guys shoot at them, they barely escape. They try again, more bad guys shoot. The ghouls show up and make everything more difficult.
Oh, and Will promises to make it back to Lara. But don't worry, he's still promising the same thing in the next one, which starts with the POV characters making a run for it, then bad guys shoot at them, they barely escape, then MORE bad guys shoot at them...
So this was an installment where I feel like it could have been split in half, edited WAY down, and whatever is left put into the preceding and following installments. It was frustrating to read -- especially because the next one opens in what feels like basically the same point.
If you are reading the series, though, hold out hope. The next one does finally move the story forward again. I just hope Sisavath doesn't start dragging out the series with more books like this one, because this is one reader that he'll lose if he does.