It is by no means a secret that IA are my Gods and I pray at their literary feet as often as possible. If tHidden Legacy books 4-5-6...About 3,5 Stars
It is by no means a secret that IA are my Gods and I pray at their literary feet as often as possible. If they write it, I'll read it. I don't care if it's a damn pea soup recipe - I freaking hate pea soup-.
[image] Oh shit...Wrong gif...Anywaaaaay...back to the book.
That being said...These three books just didn't quite hit the spot for me. I came in prepared to love them, I was determined damn it. I had pre-rated them with 5s across the board before even opening the first page, and yet...meh
Let's make a list.
What I loved... 1) The writing. IA just can't go wrong there. I love their writing style, I love the world building, I love how consistent they stay with their dos and don'ts in very complicated universes. They keep their facts straight and you don't wander through the story with "but...this can't be"s. 2) The side characters. I've said it before and I'll say it again...IA write THE BEST side characters. They're funny, crazy, well developed. They come in right when the story hits a rough spot and give it the extra push towards greatness. Grandma Frida. That's all I'm saying. 3) The action. Always there, always epic, always fascinating. As a girl that loves anything action and fantasy, they just do no wrong there. From car chases to sword fighting, they're your people. 4) Arabella...This firecracker better be getting her own story!!! She's already developing into the kind of multifaceted character I just know I'd love. If she gets a certain dark angel as her romantic interest, even better. There were too many hints for me not to get this!!!!
What I didn't love... 1) Catalina. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't get into this little wallflower routine of hers. On the positive side, there's major character growth between books, but she still reads like a kid thrust into the adult world and hating and whining through every second of it. 2) The romance. It was...Damn, it was just bad. Both of these idiots fell for each other through their damn Instagrams. Their romance bordered on obsession, not the HOT kind of obsession I always forgive my fantasy romances..The juvenile "I want the hottest kid in the block" kind of obsession. It was shallow and badly developed at best. 3) The ending. WTAF?? Was the book too long and they decided to summarise the ending?? The whole overall arc of these 3 books as well as the first 3 was tied up in a pretty, anticlimactic af, ribbon in 5 freaking pages. There were cute tid bits in there, Grandma Victoria being one...But overall? Rushed doesn't even begin to describe it. Plain old bad...
The lukewarm... Just one thing here really... Alessandro. Now, one would say Alessanro is HOT HOT HOT. Yes..But IA have set the standards high and he just couldn't compete with characters like Ronan or Curran. Plus his little obsession with Catalina the Boring lost him points.
This is a sum up of my feelings on all of the series books so far. There's bound to be plenty of spoilers!!
So...I haven't written a review in q3 Stars
This is a sum up of my feelings on all of the series books so far. There's bound to be plenty of spoilers!!
So...I haven't written a review in quite some time but these got me out of hiding. I went into these books completely blind, didn't read reviews, didn't see ratings, didn't even read the blurbs at first and more importantly, I didn't remember what else JLA had written!
I can say with quite some honesty that I don't regret for a minute reading these books. I found them entertaining, I like this world JLA has built, I enjoy meeting the bloodlines and what they're capable of! And Kieran...My precious, hairy boy... I'd happily let him shed on my carpet any day!!!
That being said...I have questions!!!
1) I started reading this blind and was a little shocked to realise that it seems like a mash up of other things I've already read...Why miss JLA do u feel this need to always borrow other ppl ideas? I realise that it's hard creating fantastical worlds and creatures, not all of us have the wild imagination needed, but, why??
2) Why vampires? Of all the fantasy creatures out there...Why Vampires? They're...well, they're overused! You could have picked so many other things!!!
3) Why this mash up of dated and modern words and speech patterns?? I had trouble deciding if this was some weird futuristic world or a past one... You could have either but having both just makes it weird!!
4) Do Atlantians mature slower since they live so long??? Because it's the only way I could see a centuries old guy so completely taken by an 18yo. Or not find it creepy... Plus they definitely don't act that "mature".
5) Why all the sex?? The books started strong, But then the sex just...Took over! Poppy and Casteel just become horndogs by the end. World is crashing and falling around them but it can wait for them to f*** each other's brains out? If I want to read about sex all the time, I won't be reading fantasy!
6) Do authors get paid by the page? Because a big part of these books could be summarised to way fewer pages without losing anything in the way of plot, story, world building, but definitely become less tiring!
Now, I'm far from a hater when it comes to these books despite all of the above! The action when it comes is lovely, the side characters keep the books going, the gods are something I always find fascinating in fantasy books! I also like how the "evil" characters are given some depth in the last book, how JLA gives them stories, even if they're not exactly redeeming! And I just know, I KNOW, the Dark One is gonna end up being the lost child!!!(Ok, I don't know that, but I strongly suspect and JLA has a knack for being super predictable!)
I'm still not sure about Poppy and Casteel! I mostly like Poppy...Even tho I feel like her behaviour is way too contradicting to her upbringing, but she has a lot of meh moments. And Casteel?? Please dearie, stop thinking with ur peen and become the badass I know u can be!...more
I am a quite easy to please reader, all I need to be pleased is a fast plot and some quirky dialogues. Ilon4 STARS
This might involve minor spoilers...
I am a quite easy to please reader, all I need to be pleased is a fast plot and some quirky dialogues. Ilona Andrews never fail to deliver on both. But there are the rare few series from which I always have higher expectations and Kate Daniels is one of those.
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This book wasn't bad, it had the plot, it had the dialogues, it had the characters. But for such an epic series I expected an equally epic ending. This series has been building up to the whole Kate-Roland confrontation for 10 freaking books and when it finally came, it was over in a hot second!!!!
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Just no...No matter how much I loved the rest of the book..And I loved it, especially everything that had to do with Kate's family(the crazy never seems to end with these people)...That was just so damn anticlimactic I was left disappointed in the end.
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On the bright side, Ilona Andrews leave plenty of space for stories to come so Imma keep my hopes up for a more satisfying closure....more
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