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4.3 AVERAGE
4.3 AVERAGE
This is the last book in the series. It follows what happens in the aftermath of the previous books, where elves tried to establish ascendancy over other supernatural beings, only to be stopped by Rachel Morgan, who channelled a goddess to save the day.
In this book, the elves are up to something, again (this time trying to tie vampires back to their souls as part of their plan), to establish their predominance amongst "fantasy folk."
It wasn't a bad read, it's just when a series comes to its' end, it can feel... necessary, and that's how it feels with this series now.
If I were to make suggestion, start with the first book in the series. The subsequent books will make more sense that way.
In this book, the elves are up to something, again (this time trying to tie vampires back to their souls as part of their plan), to establish their predominance amongst "fantasy folk."
It wasn't a bad read, it's just when a series comes to its' end, it can feel... necessary, and that's how it feels with this series now.
If I were to make suggestion, start with the first book in the series. The subsequent books will make more sense that way.
I always find it hard to review a last book in a series without spoiling it or reviewing the entire series. So I will make this fairly short without any spoilers.
First off, I must say this was an amazing book and a great ending to this great series. It had plenty of the action we used to but is nicely balanced with humor and romance. It was a pretty fast paced and had lots of things going on.
You can find my full review here:
http://myreads.booklikes.com/post/980199/the-witch-with-no-name-the-hollows-13-by-kim-harrison
First off, I must say this was an amazing book and a great ending to this great series. It had plenty of the action we used to but is nicely balanced with humor and romance. It was a pretty fast paced and had lots of things going on.
You can find my full review here:
http://myreads.booklikes.com/post/980199/the-witch-with-no-name-the-hollows-13-by-kim-harrison
As always, the ending of a series is bitter sweet. It's been a long journey with Rachel, with both ups and downs. I appreciate Harrison's talent in keeping the threads of the story together so that there can be a (n almost) complete wrapping up of all things Hollow.
I've said it in previous reviews and I will say it again: I do not like Trent. In fact, he is my least favourite character. So I knew going into this book that I wasn't going to be completely happy. What I did not full appreciate how soul-jarringly annoying Harrison would write Rachel. The constant stream of I'm-just-not-good-enough-for-the-awesomeness-that-is-Trent got so annoying that I almost quit reading. And it really doesn't get better. OK, maybe a tiny bit.
But good lord Rachel is annoying.
The resolution was a bit too deus ex machina for me. Wrapping it up? Great! Forcing a resolution for the sake of just getting it over with? No so great.
And the prologue. Ish. Too maudlin and saccharine.
However, there's plenty of Al in this one, so YAY!
I've said it in previous reviews and I will say it again: I do not like Trent. In fact, he is my least favourite character. So I knew going into this book that I wasn't going to be completely happy. What I did not full appreciate how soul-jarringly annoying Harrison would write Rachel. The constant stream of I'm-just-not-good-enough-for-the-awesomeness-that-is-Trent got so annoying that I almost quit reading. And it really doesn't get better. OK, maybe a tiny bit.
But good lord Rachel is annoying.
The resolution was a bit too deus ex machina for me. Wrapping it up? Great! Forcing a resolution for the sake of just getting it over with? No so great.
And the prologue. Ish. Too maudlin and saccharine.
However, there's plenty of Al in this one, so YAY!
It was a good wrap up to this long running story. I could have done without the epilogue though...
It was not why I expected. I really disliked 1/3 of the book. It read a lot like the Ivy and Rachel drama show, mixed with the insecure Rachel babbling. These moments have always irked me, Rachel's obsessive Ivy issues. Dang can't she just let her go ?!?!? That and the "I'm never going to fit, this can never work, I took everything, I ruin all" ......Blech ! This book was overrun with this craptastic stuff for at least 1/3 of the book. I will not even talk about Lucy's Birth Mon what's her face, double belch !
Now to the positive: Trent- Holy Hot Elfness, he was working his charms ! Loved him his unwavering beliefs and his ability to morph into this new life so well. AL- sigh- my velvet wicked little demon was nasty, twisted and full of turns and he won my heart all over again. Newt- she brought out some big crazy guns and it turned out she was more than anyone gave her credit for. Jenks was, well eh was who he always is, awesome.
I enjoyed the intensity, the fight to survive, the struggle to love and the ending was dreamy. I thought I would be sad to see them all go but I'm not it was time and I'm glad I got to read it. There is still one more little book coming from Al, I can't wait. So goodbye Hollows, it was nice.
Now to the positive: Trent- Holy Hot Elfness, he was working his charms ! Loved him his unwavering beliefs and his ability to morph into this new life so well. AL- sigh- my velvet wicked little demon was nasty, twisted and full of turns and he won my heart all over again. Newt- she brought out some big crazy guns and it turned out she was more than anyone gave her credit for. Jenks was, well eh was who he always is, awesome.
I enjoyed the intensity, the fight to survive, the struggle to love and the ending was dreamy. I thought I would be sad to see them all go but I'm not it was time and I'm glad I got to read it. There is still one more little book coming from Al, I can't wait. So goodbye Hollows, it was nice.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
My rating is for the series, definitely not for this last book. I found this last installment frustrating and wanted it to end. But I did love Al's ending! Pretty fun. However, overall, the series with unforgettable characters is still up among my all-time favorites. <3
I spent a day thinking about this, before reviewing, because to be honest... I was disappointed. And I wanted to make sure that I was disappointed with the book itself, and not just disappointed that my beloved Hollows was ending.
That said, I'm giving it 4 stars. If the book was just one more in the series, I might have even given it 4.5 stars. But as a wrap up to a series I've enjoyed for a decade... I'm not satisfied. As a series finale, I'd probably give it a 3.
So let's discuss the book itself.
My biggest problem is this: I wanted more growth from the world for a wrap-up.
I know that seems like a lot to ask, but really. This series was always going to end happily, and for me to be truly satisfied, I wanted to see some general appreciation for Rachel. I'm tired of her being everyone's favorite scapegoat. I'm tired of the world in general treating her like a menace. I'm really tired of her cleaning up everyone else's messes (more on that below), but at the very least, she's earned some respect. The fact that she had no recourse for anything, and that Cormel basically terrorized her from one plot point to the next... it just didn't sit well with me.
The mob breaking out near the end, and murdering random civilians... the elves blaming Rachel for everything... these things all didn't sit well with me. If you want me to root for Rachel to save the world, then give me a world worth saving. Because this one just isn't. There was not a single moment when I felt that people - outside of her group of friends - deserved better than this. They are all a bunch of sheep trotting happily to their own destruction, and then when the shit hits the fan, they always DEMAND - no one asks, ever - that she fix it. Cormel was most obvious with this, in this book, but frankly, he was just a more vocal stand-in for the rest of the world. Because they were, none of them, better. Eddard demanded that she fix everything. The witches were giving her the stink-eye. And on and on.
As it is, I wish she'd have formed this lovely, new, not-destroyed ever after... and taken her friends there and closed the doors. Fuck this world. Enjoy the shitstorm you created.
I'm tired of Rachel taking everything on herself. The most blatant example of this is, immediately after the Elves broke all the ley lines - and let me stress, the elves did it. Despite Rachel trying for days to stop it, arguing with all the other heavy hitters to stop it, telling everyone it would be a disaster, the elves went ahead and broke the world. Rachel dives into the muck of that spell, risking her life to first try and stop it, and when she can't, to save the demons from being exterminated (yes, this is the second book in a row where the elves attempted genocide... and again, with no consequences, more on that below). As she comes out of that spell, her first fucking words are something to the effect of "I just broke all the ley lines, but at least I saved the demons." I nearly threw my kindle, I was so pissed.
I get that Harrison wants Rachel to be compassionate. That's the core of her character, and it is why I love her. But lord knows Rachel makes plenty of her own mistakes. Her taking on someone else's mistake - especially that blatantly - disgusted me. I was actually disgusted. If I could have been there, in that room, I would have punched her right in the face, despite her injuries. Doing that doesn't make her strong. It makes her a whiny bitch. It's not always about her. Everything that goes wrong isn't always on her. Some things are just not her responsibility. YES, if she can help she should help - that's what being a hero means. But for the love of sweet baby Jesus, everyone in the world already blames you for everything. Let's not start blaming yourself on top of them. It is DISGUSTING. It makes her seem broken.
And that wasn't the only example. I swear to god that at least 30% of the narrative of this book was Rachel either whining or beating herself up for shit that was not her fault. Even worse was the CONSTANTLY REPEATED narrative that Trent was too good for her, she was holding him back from greatness. Trent? Trent?? Are you fucking kidding me? Mr. Ex-Supervillain? It was too much. Way, way, way too much.
The bad guys didn't get what was coming to them in the end.
I'm not going to lie, this was a big deal to me. Look. While in a series, it sometimes frustrates me when bad guys don't get slapped in the face with consequences (or a fist) at the end of a book... but I understand that the story carries across MANY books, and so sometimes those things have to be held back.
But this is THE END. There's no hope for a satisfying conclusion down the road. And even worse, the bad guys not only didn't get their comeuppance, they actually just literally disappeared.
What happened to Cormel? Are you kidding me with all the shit he pulled in this book, and then he just outright disappeared? I want to see that asshole forcibly bound to his soul, so he suncides. No, I want to see him bound in a room with his soul - oh, for maybe a few years - but unable to touch it. And THEN he can commit suncide. He's a thug, an outright fucking villain. And we saw no consequences to his behavior. Yes yes, there was some implication that the pulled-out-of-butt hoodoo will shift vampire power structure slowly over years, but ... that was so nebulous that I don't have any real sense of consequence to it. How will that happen? When Ivy dies... do they both die? Do they both become soulless monsters? If that's the case (if EITHER is the case), the old ones that keep away from their souls win in the end anyway. It is unacceptable. This is the end, Cormel has been a fuckbag for a good long time now, and I want to see him soundly losing in the end of this series. Not just offstage somewhere, doing god knows what.
What happened to Landon??? That asshole has now gotten away with not just two flagrant attempts at genocide (the vampires in both the last book AND this book, but also the demons in this book), but a good attempt at world domination (by ridding the world of all magic except the elven magic). And we didn't see him even once after his plan went to shit. The world fell apart and he disappeared. YES, we can assume that he's not in power anymore - Trent seems to have gained control of the elves again - but is he in JAIL? Because that's where he should be, and anything less is not acceptable. Frankly, he should be torn to pieces. There are any number of satisfying ways to end his arc, jail being the easiest. But he could have been torn apart by the demons. Torn apart by the Goddess for tricking her into imprisoning herself by breaking the lines. Cast out by the elves for taking advantage of them. But speaking of elves...
FUCK THEM. There is just NO WAY that they deserve to go on living in the world after what they did in this book. At the very least, they should all be in a fucking prison camp somewhere. I don't care that Landon organized it. They all saw what Landon did in the last book. And despite that, they went along with him. It isn't because no one told them the consequences - even the witches (at least the academics) were agreeing that shit would go bad if they went ahead with their asinine plan. But they decided, fuck the whole world, we want to be in charge, we're going to wreck everything to do it. They want to be the Elven overlords? Fine. They can be the elven overlords of fucking Mars. They should be kicked right the fuck off the planet, because they can't be trusted, and they should not be tolerated. If Landon was Hitler (and he sure wanted to be), the Elves were the Nazi party.
The elves get away with way too much shit. They are AT LEAST as bad as the demons are, and frankly, I think they are even worse. The demons haven't tried genocide in thousands of years. The elves try it every couple of months. And I'm so over the elves and their feud with the demons. The demons have a right to be pissed - as Al said, it wasn't their ancestors who were betrayed, it was THEM. But the elves do NOT have a right to be pissed. They've been living happily in the world, having kids, kicking back, attempting world domination... accepted members of society. They don't get to be pissed at a group of people that were soundly beaten by their ancestors. They don't get to be pissed about a war that happened several thousand years ago, well before any of these assholes were born. That would be like me declaring war on Rome because of the way they treated my Celtic ancestors. It is fucking stupid, and fuck the elves.
And as for a couple specific elves:
- Quen - fuck him. After everything Rachel has done, he still treats her like she's an unfortunate hanger-on. I respected Quen for a good long time, but that disappeared as soon as Trent started redeeming himself. Fuck Quen. He's a good example of everything that is wrong with the rank and file elves.
- Ellasbeth - fuck her. Honestly, she should also be in jail. I get that she wasn't fully on board with Landon's plan, but she definitely worked with him on some of it, and she took full advantage. She would have happily run with both kids (including one that ISN'T HERS AT ALL) and disappeared, never letting Trent see them again. Frankly, I do not buy that she somehow has to be in the girls' lives because oh, she's their mother, of course she does. No. The bitch is a sociopath, and she will NEVER have anything good to offer the girls. Don't let her bitchness rub off on them, they are way too sweet to be around such a toxic, evil personality.
- Jon - goes without saying. That guy should be treated like a rabid dog.
That all said, there were things I liked. I liked the wrap up with the demons. They get a bad wrap - and yes, we've seen them do bad things, but let's be real here... no demon has done, over the course of this series (maybe thousands of years ago they did bad things, but I'm just talking about in this lifetime), worse things than Trent Kalamack. And we're supposed to forgive him. I love Al. I love Newt. I'm happy with where things landed for them, I'm satisfied. I think they should have gotten to take their best crack at elf genocide (or at least eternal elf imprisonment) just to make things fair and square, but I do believe they're happy in this world, in these circumstances, so that's okay.
And I believed that Trent cared for Rachel (and he tolerated her constant whining way better than I would have). Full disclosure... I'm not really onboard with Trent as the hero. I just don't know that he can be forgiven for some of the things he's done. Yes, I do believe that he has changed, that his love for Rachel has changed him. But I just don't know that anyone deserves to get away with murder... even if they do change. And murder isn't the most horrible thing he's done, just the most un-fixable. He got way too much glee out of doing evil stuff early in the series. But despite my lingering dislike of him... I do believe he loves her, and that he's a better person because of her. And he also clearly is good for her (now that he isn't torturing her or trying to kill her anymore), and he makes her happy (now). I believe they got a happy ending. I'm just not convinced he deserved it.
And then lastly, I'm thrilled for Ivy. She deserves to be truly happy, truly loved, and I'm glad that they were able to find a way to give her that. I wish Jenks had gotten a bit of an HEA, but... I guess we'll have to be satisfied with the fact that he's still alive and still Rachel's best friend. That's something, at least.
So. If it was just another book in the series, some of these things would probably bother me less - you could hope for justice down the line. But as THE END, it just wasn't enough, and that makes me sad.
I'll miss the Hollows, for sure. It remains one of my favorites. But I had wished for so much more here, in the end.
That said, I'm giving it 4 stars. If the book was just one more in the series, I might have even given it 4.5 stars. But as a wrap up to a series I've enjoyed for a decade... I'm not satisfied. As a series finale, I'd probably give it a 3.
So let's discuss the book itself.
Spoiler
My biggest problem is this: I wanted more growth from the world for a wrap-up.
I know that seems like a lot to ask, but really. This series was always going to end happily, and for me to be truly satisfied, I wanted to see some general appreciation for Rachel. I'm tired of her being everyone's favorite scapegoat. I'm tired of the world in general treating her like a menace. I'm really tired of her cleaning up everyone else's messes (more on that below), but at the very least, she's earned some respect. The fact that she had no recourse for anything, and that Cormel basically terrorized her from one plot point to the next... it just didn't sit well with me.
The mob breaking out near the end, and murdering random civilians... the elves blaming Rachel for everything... these things all didn't sit well with me. If you want me to root for Rachel to save the world, then give me a world worth saving. Because this one just isn't. There was not a single moment when I felt that people - outside of her group of friends - deserved better than this. They are all a bunch of sheep trotting happily to their own destruction, and then when the shit hits the fan, they always DEMAND - no one asks, ever - that she fix it. Cormel was most obvious with this, in this book, but frankly, he was just a more vocal stand-in for the rest of the world. Because they were, none of them, better. Eddard demanded that she fix everything. The witches were giving her the stink-eye. And on and on.
As it is, I wish she'd have formed this lovely, new, not-destroyed ever after... and taken her friends there and closed the doors. Fuck this world. Enjoy the shitstorm you created.
I'm tired of Rachel taking everything on herself. The most blatant example of this is, immediately after the Elves broke all the ley lines - and let me stress, the elves did it. Despite Rachel trying for days to stop it, arguing with all the other heavy hitters to stop it, telling everyone it would be a disaster, the elves went ahead and broke the world. Rachel dives into the muck of that spell, risking her life to first try and stop it, and when she can't, to save the demons from being exterminated (yes, this is the second book in a row where the elves attempted genocide... and again, with no consequences, more on that below). As she comes out of that spell, her first fucking words are something to the effect of "I just broke all the ley lines, but at least I saved the demons." I nearly threw my kindle, I was so pissed.
I get that Harrison wants Rachel to be compassionate. That's the core of her character, and it is why I love her. But lord knows Rachel makes plenty of her own mistakes. Her taking on someone else's mistake - especially that blatantly - disgusted me. I was actually disgusted. If I could have been there, in that room, I would have punched her right in the face, despite her injuries. Doing that doesn't make her strong. It makes her a whiny bitch. It's not always about her. Everything that goes wrong isn't always on her. Some things are just not her responsibility. YES, if she can help she should help - that's what being a hero means. But for the love of sweet baby Jesus, everyone in the world already blames you for everything. Let's not start blaming yourself on top of them. It is DISGUSTING. It makes her seem broken.
And that wasn't the only example. I swear to god that at least 30% of the narrative of this book was Rachel either whining or beating herself up for shit that was not her fault. Even worse was the CONSTANTLY REPEATED narrative that Trent was too good for her, she was holding him back from greatness. Trent? Trent?? Are you fucking kidding me? Mr. Ex-Supervillain? It was too much. Way, way, way too much.
The bad guys didn't get what was coming to them in the end.
I'm not going to lie, this was a big deal to me. Look. While in a series, it sometimes frustrates me when bad guys don't get slapped in the face with consequences (or a fist) at the end of a book... but I understand that the story carries across MANY books, and so sometimes those things have to be held back.
But this is THE END. There's no hope for a satisfying conclusion down the road. And even worse, the bad guys not only didn't get their comeuppance, they actually just literally disappeared.
What happened to Cormel? Are you kidding me with all the shit he pulled in this book, and then he just outright disappeared? I want to see that asshole forcibly bound to his soul, so he suncides. No, I want to see him bound in a room with his soul - oh, for maybe a few years - but unable to touch it. And THEN he can commit suncide. He's a thug, an outright fucking villain. And we saw no consequences to his behavior. Yes yes, there was some implication that the pulled-out-of-butt hoodoo will shift vampire power structure slowly over years, but ... that was so nebulous that I don't have any real sense of consequence to it. How will that happen? When Ivy dies... do they both die? Do they both become soulless monsters? If that's the case (if EITHER is the case), the old ones that keep away from their souls win in the end anyway. It is unacceptable. This is the end, Cormel has been a fuckbag for a good long time now, and I want to see him soundly losing in the end of this series. Not just offstage somewhere, doing god knows what.
What happened to Landon??? That asshole has now gotten away with not just two flagrant attempts at genocide (the vampires in both the last book AND this book, but also the demons in this book), but a good attempt at world domination (by ridding the world of all magic except the elven magic). And we didn't see him even once after his plan went to shit. The world fell apart and he disappeared. YES, we can assume that he's not in power anymore - Trent seems to have gained control of the elves again - but is he in JAIL? Because that's where he should be, and anything less is not acceptable. Frankly, he should be torn to pieces. There are any number of satisfying ways to end his arc, jail being the easiest. But he could have been torn apart by the demons. Torn apart by the Goddess for tricking her into imprisoning herself by breaking the lines. Cast out by the elves for taking advantage of them. But speaking of elves...
FUCK THEM. There is just NO WAY that they deserve to go on living in the world after what they did in this book. At the very least, they should all be in a fucking prison camp somewhere. I don't care that Landon organized it. They all saw what Landon did in the last book. And despite that, they went along with him. It isn't because no one told them the consequences - even the witches (at least the academics) were agreeing that shit would go bad if they went ahead with their asinine plan. But they decided, fuck the whole world, we want to be in charge, we're going to wreck everything to do it. They want to be the Elven overlords? Fine. They can be the elven overlords of fucking Mars. They should be kicked right the fuck off the planet, because they can't be trusted, and they should not be tolerated. If Landon was Hitler (and he sure wanted to be), the Elves were the Nazi party.
The elves get away with way too much shit. They are AT LEAST as bad as the demons are, and frankly, I think they are even worse. The demons haven't tried genocide in thousands of years. The elves try it every couple of months. And I'm so over the elves and their feud with the demons. The demons have a right to be pissed - as Al said, it wasn't their ancestors who were betrayed, it was THEM. But the elves do NOT have a right to be pissed. They've been living happily in the world, having kids, kicking back, attempting world domination... accepted members of society. They don't get to be pissed at a group of people that were soundly beaten by their ancestors. They don't get to be pissed about a war that happened several thousand years ago, well before any of these assholes were born. That would be like me declaring war on Rome because of the way they treated my Celtic ancestors. It is fucking stupid, and fuck the elves.
And as for a couple specific elves:
- Quen - fuck him. After everything Rachel has done, he still treats her like she's an unfortunate hanger-on. I respected Quen for a good long time, but that disappeared as soon as Trent started redeeming himself. Fuck Quen. He's a good example of everything that is wrong with the rank and file elves.
- Ellasbeth - fuck her. Honestly, she should also be in jail. I get that she wasn't fully on board with Landon's plan, but she definitely worked with him on some of it, and she took full advantage. She would have happily run with both kids (including one that ISN'T HERS AT ALL) and disappeared, never letting Trent see them again. Frankly, I do not buy that she somehow has to be in the girls' lives because oh, she's their mother, of course she does. No. The bitch is a sociopath, and she will NEVER have anything good to offer the girls. Don't let her bitchness rub off on them, they are way too sweet to be around such a toxic, evil personality.
- Jon - goes without saying. That guy should be treated like a rabid dog.
That all said, there were things I liked. I liked the wrap up with the demons. They get a bad wrap - and yes, we've seen them do bad things, but let's be real here... no demon has done, over the course of this series (maybe thousands of years ago they did bad things, but I'm just talking about in this lifetime), worse things than Trent Kalamack. And we're supposed to forgive him. I love Al. I love Newt. I'm happy with where things landed for them, I'm satisfied. I think they should have gotten to take their best crack at elf genocide (or at least eternal elf imprisonment) just to make things fair and square, but I do believe they're happy in this world, in these circumstances, so that's okay.
And I believed that Trent cared for Rachel (and he tolerated her constant whining way better than I would have). Full disclosure... I'm not really onboard with Trent as the hero. I just don't know that he can be forgiven for some of the things he's done. Yes, I do believe that he has changed, that his love for Rachel has changed him. But I just don't know that anyone deserves to get away with murder... even if they do change. And murder isn't the most horrible thing he's done, just the most un-fixable. He got way too much glee out of doing evil stuff early in the series. But despite my lingering dislike of him... I do believe he loves her, and that he's a better person because of her. And he also clearly is good for her (now that he isn't torturing her or trying to kill her anymore), and he makes her happy (now). I believe they got a happy ending. I'm just not convinced he deserved it.
And then lastly, I'm thrilled for Ivy. She deserves to be truly happy, truly loved, and I'm glad that they were able to find a way to give her that. I wish Jenks had gotten a bit of an HEA, but... I guess we'll have to be satisfied with the fact that he's still alive and still Rachel's best friend. That's something, at least.
So. If it was just another book in the series, some of these things would probably bother me less - you could hope for justice down the line. But as THE END, it just wasn't enough, and that makes me sad.
I'll miss the Hollows, for sure. It remains one of my favorites. But I had wished for so much more here, in the end.