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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This review encompasses my thoughts on both "Beast of War" and the "Beasts of Prey" series as a whole. While I do believe Ayana Gray possesses an immense talent for drawing together fun and compelling world-building elements and structuring these moments into conflicts along a hero's journey, her character and plot ultimately are left at the wayside to rot.
There were elements of this story that I enjoyed as singular entities separate from the plot, specifically the myriad of quests to garner support from the various gods of Eshōza, wherein each god felt like a fascinating and deeper dive into the world that the author has crafted. But in the grand scheme of the overall story, these "assembling of the Avengers" moments felt so forcefully shoved into the plot that it often felt like a means of which to fluff out the reason why this series is a trilogy instead of a duology.
Alongside book 2 feeling like a transitional and static story, book 3 feels like an over-extension of ideas, with the overall result being that each book feels like an entirely separate entity from each other. And because "Beast of War" was such an over-extension, the final conclusion was jarringly abrupt, with a cursory message of "well everyone does bad things sometimes!" blanketing the forgiveness of a villain who had imprisoned Koffi and her friends and was planning to commit mass genocide. Plus tying in with how each book feels like a separate entity, the conclusion also felt like a moment in which the author abruptly remembered that there had been elements that had been forgotten in the transition between books (NAMELY KOFFI'S OWN FAMILY?? AND EKON'S BROTHER???), cramming all of their character relationship conclusions into a handful of chapters.
Furthermore, as a result of so much energy of the series weighted into the world-building, the character development of Koffi and Ekon was near non-existent, both in book 3 and in the series as a whole. As books 1-2 concluded, it felt as though Koffi and Ekon had had a small, gradual amount of character development, which makes sense for a larger series, you want your characters to develop slowly through the course of all the books. But as each subsequent book dawned, the characters would immediately revert back to the characterization they had in book 1. Koffi continued to be overly-impulsive, selfishly petulant, and carelessly unthinking throughout most of "Beast of Prey", "Beast of Ruin", AND "Best of War". And the same could be said of Ekon's lack of ability to rescind control, his complex relationship with the Son of Six, and his troubles with PTSD.
Moreover, because the plot was so overly busy, the relationship between Koffi and Ekon wasn't given room to expand and grow. This is by no means an issue tied only to this series, but I feel so many authors who write romances into their stories neglect to treat the relationship itself as a character; one that needs conflict and strife in which to grow and fully develop into a multi-faceted entity. And with Koffi and Ekon, their relationship was so static and flat, that it was near impossible to feel the chemistry between them at any point in the entire series.
Overall, I'm pretty bummed with how this series turned out, "Beast of Prey" had started out so promising, and I can definitely see some of the merits of Ayana Grey's writing ability. But, unfortunately the character building abilities she has (or, rather, lacks) needs some serious work before I would consider returning to any of her writing in the future.
There were elements of this story that I enjoyed as singular entities separate from the plot, specifically the myriad of quests to garner support from the various gods of Eshōza, wherein each god felt like a fascinating and deeper dive into the world that the author has crafted. But in the grand scheme of the overall story, these "assembling of the Avengers" moments felt so forcefully shoved into the plot that it often felt like a means of which to fluff out the reason why this series is a trilogy instead of a duology.
Alongside book 2 feeling like a transitional and static story, book 3 feels like an over-extension of ideas, with the overall result being that each book feels like an entirely separate entity from each other. And because "Beast of War" was such an over-extension, the final conclusion was jarringly abrupt, with a cursory message of "well everyone does bad things sometimes!" blanketing the forgiveness of a villain who had imprisoned Koffi and her friends and was planning to commit mass genocide. Plus tying in with how each book feels like a separate entity, the conclusion also felt like a moment in which the author abruptly remembered that there had been elements that had been forgotten in the transition between books (NAMELY KOFFI'S OWN FAMILY?? AND EKON'S BROTHER???), cramming all of their character relationship conclusions into a handful of chapters.
Furthermore, as a result of so much energy of the series weighted into the world-building, the character development of Koffi and Ekon was near non-existent, both in book 3 and in the series as a whole. As books 1-2 concluded, it felt as though Koffi and Ekon had had a small, gradual amount of character development, which makes sense for a larger series, you want your characters to develop slowly through the course of all the books. But as each subsequent book dawned, the characters would immediately revert back to the characterization they had in book 1. Koffi continued to be overly-impulsive, selfishly petulant, and carelessly unthinking throughout most of "Beast of Prey", "Beast of Ruin", AND "Best of War". And the same could be said of Ekon's lack of ability to rescind control, his complex relationship with the Son of Six, and his troubles with PTSD.
Moreover, because the plot was so overly busy, the relationship between Koffi and Ekon wasn't given room to expand and grow. This is by no means an issue tied only to this series, but I feel so many authors who write romances into their stories neglect to treat the relationship itself as a character; one that needs conflict and strife in which to grow and fully develop into a multi-faceted entity. And with Koffi and Ekon, their relationship was so static and flat, that it was near impossible to feel the chemistry between them at any point in the entire series.
Overall, I'm pretty bummed with how this series turned out, "Beast of Prey" had started out so promising, and I can definitely see some of the merits of Ayana Grey's writing ability. But, unfortunately the character building abilities she has (or, rather, lacks) needs some serious work before I would consider returning to any of her writing in the future.
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A perfect send off for this series and enjoyed every moment of it
definitely a victim to the curse of the last book in a trilogy because this was not as good as the first two. It was very anticlimactic, no character development, and quite a few plot holes in my opinion. Big battles we expected got quickly resolved. Very much like “plot of convenience.” I guess overall I’m happy that the main character gets a happy ending but I’m just left kind of disappointed with the rest of the story.
Not a bad book but has its flaws. It almost feels like this was wrote to just be the conclusion and the author didn’t care about connecting it to the rest of the series or having everything wrapped up in a quality way. It was just like yep okay it’s over. Like hmm
Not a bad book but has its flaws. It almost feels like this was wrote to just be the conclusion and the author didn’t care about connecting it to the rest of the series or having everything wrapped up in a quality way. It was just like yep okay it’s over. Like hmm
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes