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A review by katyanaish
Reckoning by Lili St. Crow
3.0
Well, huh.
Let's start with this: I enjoyed this series a lot.
It was a good, fast read. I liked the world, I loved the characters, I was fascinated by the powers.
But as a series finale, I thought this sucked.
Let's go through the reasons.
There was suspicion, throughout the last few books, that Dru could do things that other svetocha could not. And that was cool - I liked learning about her world alongside her. But now that we've finally got some confirmation on that, and some indication of why... I don't understand why that was totally unexplored. It feels like this is info that should have been given before the last book (or, the last quarter of the last book), so that we could dig in. It was a doorway into a whole other branch of this world (the Maharaj), and it was spit out and summarily dropped like a hot rock, for all intents and purposes. That's ridiculous.
2. The love triangle - wtf?
I'm sure other people have written about this to death in reviews, so I'm just going to offer a brief echo here. Firstly, generally speaking, I hate love triangles. It didn't bother me much in this series, though, and that was because it didn't feel very triangle-y to me. You had the boy Dru liked, but who didn't really seem to like her back - Graves. Because let's be honest, here. His hot/cold shit was annoying. His "don't leave without me" but then utter disregard when she begged him to leave was even more annoying. I like Graves as a character, and as a friend, but I thought he was shit as a love interest. From the moment he got to the Schola, he seemed to only have a little bit of interest/attention to spare for Dru - he was having a great time at the reform Schola, and literally gave no shits that she was not only miserable, but was also not even being taught.
Conversely, Christophe... was annoying in that he didn't always share info with her, but undoubtedly was always on her side, and would always be there when she needed him. It was heartbreaking, how underappreciated he was. How much Dru undervalued him. As Graves became ... well, frankly, not only less and less reliable in the latter half of the series, but also less and less likable (the hot/cold and the disregard for her is just, for me, unforgivable)... I felt like the author was steering the readers toward Christophe pretty clearly. Because he was ALWAYS reliable, ALWAYS selfless when it came to his care for Dru. Always attentive, always put her first. I guess I just didn't even see how it was a dilemma, in terms of who to choose.
And then, nothing. It's like the author... I don't know. Copped out. That's honestly how it feels. To such a degree that I'm surprised she didn't write more books in this series, because not only is this unfinished, but point 1 above... is such a big, untouched thing just begging to be explored.
3. Other unfinished business
There were plenty of other threads in this series that are just outright left undone. How about the horrid racism towards the Wulfen? It sounds like Anna did a lot to worsen that situation. If Dru is going to be a leader, why isn't addressing that the top of her list? She just seems to accept it as the way things are, and that's gross to me.
Ash. Why was he bound to her like that? He could find her anywhere, any time, and even Christophe wondered why, in this book. Can we get some digging in to that? And how about Broken as a whole? Dru seemed to be able to fix them, when no one else has ever had any success with that (according to the wulfen, anyway). Why? This seems to be an important element in the series - lots of time was devoted to her doing that, both with Ash and then (seemingly) with Graves. Vague hand-waving as to how or why doesn't cut it, not for your series finale.
What the hell happened to her touch? It has been a reliable vehicle of intuition, and well handled throughout the entire series, but here it just disappears, and again, all we get is some vague hand-waving as to why.
Anna. Why does Anna seem to remain a constant presence in her head - even able to take control, to some degree - when that's not the case for others that Dru has drank? And also, the drinking... it was pretty clearly laid out that Anna was doing something bad as she forced Dru to drink from her. She was cursing Christophe, saying he "deserves it" ... So what did she do that was bad? And what ended up happening to Anna, anyway?
Why only 3 "pulls" when you're drinking someone? What happens if there's more? And Leon was bonded with a svetocha. How does that happen? Why?
So many threads just left dangling.
I've gotta say, it feels to me like the author had intended this series to move beyond this book, and then for whatever reason, it didn't happen.
I can't rate this lower than 3 stars, despite all the problems above, because I really did enjoy the series. And I really enjoyed Dru. I think she's a good, complex, well-rounded character, and I think the author hit a wonderful delicate balance of having her be self-sufficient and capable, while still needing people and making occasional mistakes ... and I didn't feel like any of the mistakes she made were of the TSTL variety (which is great, that stuff drives me bonkers). Most of them were either rooted in betrayal - someone she trusted giving her wrong information - or just something about the bigger picture that the readers could see while Dru just didn't have the information to see (for example, readers were given clarity on her visions, while in the narrative it was clear that Dru didn't retain them very well ... we can't blame her for decisions when we've had clear info given to us in those visions that she hasn't been able to remember).
Glad I read the series. Mostly just wish it was going on for a couple more books, so we could dig into the stuff behind the spoiler tags...
Let's start with this: I enjoyed this series a lot.
It was a good, fast read. I liked the world, I loved the characters, I was fascinated by the powers.
But as a series finale, I thought this sucked.
Let's go through the reasons.
Spoiler
1. Dru's abilities - gimme more info, please!There was suspicion, throughout the last few books, that Dru could do things that other svetocha could not. And that was cool - I liked learning about her world alongside her. But now that we've finally got some confirmation on that, and some indication of why... I don't understand why that was totally unexplored. It feels like this is info that should have been given before the last book (or, the last quarter of the last book), so that we could dig in. It was a doorway into a whole other branch of this world (the Maharaj), and it was spit out and summarily dropped like a hot rock, for all intents and purposes. That's ridiculous.
2. The love triangle - wtf?
I'm sure other people have written about this to death in reviews, so I'm just going to offer a brief echo here. Firstly, generally speaking, I hate love triangles. It didn't bother me much in this series, though, and that was because it didn't feel very triangle-y to me. You had the boy Dru liked, but who didn't really seem to like her back - Graves. Because let's be honest, here. His hot/cold shit was annoying. His "don't leave without me" but then utter disregard when she begged him to leave was even more annoying. I like Graves as a character, and as a friend, but I thought he was shit as a love interest. From the moment he got to the Schola, he seemed to only have a little bit of interest/attention to spare for Dru - he was having a great time at the reform Schola, and literally gave no shits that she was not only miserable, but was also not even being taught.
Conversely, Christophe... was annoying in that he didn't always share info with her, but undoubtedly was always on her side, and would always be there when she needed him. It was heartbreaking, how underappreciated he was. How much Dru undervalued him. As Graves became ... well, frankly, not only less and less reliable in the latter half of the series, but also less and less likable (the hot/cold and the disregard for her is just, for me, unforgivable)... I felt like the author was steering the readers toward Christophe pretty clearly. Because he was ALWAYS reliable, ALWAYS selfless when it came to his care for Dru. Always attentive, always put her first. I guess I just didn't even see how it was a dilemma, in terms of who to choose.
And then, nothing. It's like the author... I don't know. Copped out. That's honestly how it feels. To such a degree that I'm surprised she didn't write more books in this series, because not only is this unfinished, but point 1 above... is such a big, untouched thing just begging to be explored.
3. Other unfinished business
There were plenty of other threads in this series that are just outright left undone. How about the horrid racism towards the Wulfen? It sounds like Anna did a lot to worsen that situation. If Dru is going to be a leader, why isn't addressing that the top of her list? She just seems to accept it as the way things are, and that's gross to me.
Ash. Why was he bound to her like that? He could find her anywhere, any time, and even Christophe wondered why, in this book. Can we get some digging in to that? And how about Broken as a whole? Dru seemed to be able to fix them, when no one else has ever had any success with that (according to the wulfen, anyway). Why? This seems to be an important element in the series - lots of time was devoted to her doing that, both with Ash and then (seemingly) with Graves. Vague hand-waving as to how or why doesn't cut it, not for your series finale.
What the hell happened to her touch? It has been a reliable vehicle of intuition, and well handled throughout the entire series, but here it just disappears, and again, all we get is some vague hand-waving as to why.
Anna. Why does Anna seem to remain a constant presence in her head - even able to take control, to some degree - when that's not the case for others that Dru has drank? And also, the drinking... it was pretty clearly laid out that Anna was doing something bad as she forced Dru to drink from her. She was cursing Christophe, saying he "deserves it" ... So what did she do that was bad? And what ended up happening to Anna, anyway?
Why only 3 "pulls" when you're drinking someone? What happens if there's more? And Leon was bonded with a svetocha. How does that happen? Why?
So many threads just left dangling.
I've gotta say, it feels to me like the author had intended this series to move beyond this book, and then for whatever reason, it didn't happen.
I can't rate this lower than 3 stars, despite all the problems above, because I really did enjoy the series. And I really enjoyed Dru. I think she's a good, complex, well-rounded character, and I think the author hit a wonderful delicate balance of having her be self-sufficient and capable, while still needing people and making occasional mistakes ... and I didn't feel like any of the mistakes she made were of the TSTL variety (which is great, that stuff drives me bonkers). Most of them were either rooted in betrayal - someone she trusted giving her wrong information - or just something about the bigger picture that the readers could see while Dru just didn't have the information to see (for example, readers were given clarity on her visions, while in the narrative it was clear that Dru didn't retain them very well ... we can't blame her for decisions when we've had clear info given to us in those visions that she hasn't been able to remember).
Glad I read the series. Mostly just wish it was going on for a couple more books, so we could dig into the stuff behind the spoiler tags...