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A review by votesforwomen
The Final Spark by Richard Paul Evans
2.0
so. I'm definitely very disappointed with this book, k?
It's definitely more in the flavor of Storm of Lightning, where it's a short book where nothing really happens. Which was very, very disappointing.
There will be spoilers later in this post, but I'll try to keep the first half clear.
First of all: it may be that I'm just biased after the epicness that was Fall of Hades. That one was flawed and certainly imperfect, but the end was the most brilliant end to a YA book I've read in a long time. I cried, I danced, and I thought that if this was the sixth book, the seventh was going to have a tough job surpassing it.
I was right.
The thing is, this book is--I'll say it--kind of boring. Most of it is centered around the Tuvaluan prime minister's grandson, Enele, and his friends, who are spearheading a rebellion in Tuvalu to destroy Hatch's army. The thing is, most of their part is technical war strategy. Michael Vey books have never been good at detail-balance (the things that don't matter go on for pages, and the actual plot happens in a few sentences, like Les Miserables) but in this one it was just too much. The characters we've grown to love and care about over the course of six books hardly make appearances. Jack and Ostin are prominent, but just the two of them, and Ostin feels very out of character. The rest of the Electroclan is sidelined so that we don't even see most of them.
I'll provide some things I liked and then move on to the nitpicking.
-I liked the way that Jack and Ostin were featured as friends! I really did! They got along really well, and they've come a long way from the first book. I seriously enjoyed that aspect of it.
-Some of the dialogue was hilarious. I can't find any particular examples at the moment, but... yeah. I cracked up a couple of times.
-The kids and their arguments got to me, but... were also really funny.
-Hatch is a really, really terrible villain. And in this book he's gone full-out insane. Which was creepy but awesome and I loved it.
Now: bring on the spoilers. (And I'm serious. DO NOT open them unless you want the whole thing spoiled. I jest you not.)
And then the end just made me super uncomfortable. Michael showed up and started vaporizing people, and when he started talking to Hatch about what he was going to do to him... it gave me the creeps. Like, it wasn't Michael talking anymore. It sounded like he had become Hatch. Wouldn't that have been an idea? If Michael had come back evil? But no. He vaporizes Hatch in cold blood, and no one cares. I'm all for the death of despicable villains, but for someone who's supposed to be heroic just murdering them the way they've killed people all along... sorry, but no. I'm not on board for that. Harry doesn't REALLY kill Voldemort- the Elder Wand does. Frodo doesn't REALLY kill Sauron. Aslan kills the White Witch, but he's the God figure and she's pure evil and he can do that. When our hero just slays someone in cold blood and the hero didn't set themselves up for it...I'm not on board. I'm just not! So that really bothered me.
Also, I didn't appreciate the fact that we got no closure on the ending. For all we know, Kylie and Bryan are still trapped on the island of Tuvalu with the rest of the Elgen; McKenna, Zeus, and the other Glows who don't have families are all milling around someplace on their own; Welch is still in Cell 25; and on and on. I wanted to know more than that the four Idaho kids went back to school and Jack and Abigail are thinking of moving to Italy. Like, Ostin and McKenna, for example. What's going to happen with them? I just... I wanted to have an actual ending, and I don't feel like there was any kind of closure for any characters besides the Vey family, Taylor, Ostin, and Jack (and Abigail, I guess.)
So that's it. My review of this book. It was certainly disappointing, so I will probably be writing some fanfic of the sixth one to make that one the end instead.
It's definitely more in the flavor of Storm of Lightning, where it's a short book where nothing really happens. Which was very, very disappointing.
There will be spoilers later in this post, but I'll try to keep the first half clear.
First of all: it may be that I'm just biased after the epicness that was Fall of Hades. That one was flawed and certainly imperfect, but the end was the most brilliant end to a YA book I've read in a long time. I cried, I danced, and I thought that if this was the sixth book, the seventh was going to have a tough job surpassing it.
I was right.
The thing is, this book is--I'll say it--kind of boring. Most of it is centered around the Tuvaluan prime minister's grandson, Enele, and his friends, who are spearheading a rebellion in Tuvalu to destroy Hatch's army. The thing is, most of their part is technical war strategy. Michael Vey books have never been good at detail-balance (the things that don't matter go on for pages, and the actual plot happens in a few sentences, like Les Miserables) but in this one it was just too much. The characters we've grown to love and care about over the course of six books hardly make appearances. Jack and Ostin are prominent, but just the two of them, and Ostin feels very out of character. The rest of the Electroclan is sidelined so that we don't even see most of them.
I'll provide some things I liked and then move on to the nitpicking.
-I liked the way that Jack and Ostin were featured as friends! I really did! They got along really well, and they've come a long way from the first book. I seriously enjoyed that aspect of it.
-Some of the dialogue was hilarious. I can't find any particular examples at the moment, but... yeah. I cracked up a couple of times.
-The kids and their arguments got to me, but... were also really funny.
-Hatch is a really, really terrible villain. And in this book he's gone full-out insane. Which was creepy but awesome and I loved it.
Now: bring on the spoilers. (And I'm serious. DO NOT open them unless you want the whole thing spoiled. I jest you not.)
Spoiler
Michael, Tanner, and Gervaso all died in the last book--but no one seemed to care in this one, except Taylor, who has serious depression now that Michael's gone. But wait! Michael's not dead! Instead, he was turned into lightning energy and is now... a lightning god? I'm sorry, what? I predicted something like that happening, but seriously. The stupidity of the way he showed up at the end was just too much k. He existed at this point 100% for deus ex machina, and it made me CRAZY! Also: The people who were supposed to be dead, (i.e., Carl Vey, Michael Vey, and Dr. Coonradt) were all actually alive, and no prominent characters died in this book. Oh, yeah, nobody but all the people at Christmas Ranch! I forgot about that! Grace, the girl who could turn into a hard-drive, died, as well as a bunch of extras. But that's okay, because Ostin's parents and Michael's mom made it out. No one else important died. And, even though Tanner and Gervaso lost their lives very valiantly in the last book, EVERYONE IS STILL HUNG UP ON WADE FROM BOOK 3! They put up a memorial to him, and everyone cries about him, and it's like NO ONE CARES ABOUT WADE! ARGH!And then the end just made me super uncomfortable. Michael showed up and started vaporizing people, and when he started talking to Hatch about what he was going to do to him... it gave me the creeps. Like, it wasn't Michael talking anymore. It sounded like he had become Hatch. Wouldn't that have been an idea? If Michael had come back evil? But no. He vaporizes Hatch in cold blood, and no one cares. I'm all for the death of despicable villains, but for someone who's supposed to be heroic just murdering them the way they've killed people all along... sorry, but no. I'm not on board for that. Harry doesn't REALLY kill Voldemort- the Elder Wand does. Frodo doesn't REALLY kill Sauron. Aslan kills the White Witch, but he's the God figure and she's pure evil and he can do that. When our hero just slays someone in cold blood and the hero didn't set themselves up for it...I'm not on board. I'm just not! So that really bothered me.
Also, I didn't appreciate the fact that we got no closure on the ending. For all we know, Kylie and Bryan are still trapped on the island of Tuvalu with the rest of the Elgen; McKenna, Zeus, and the other Glows who don't have families are all milling around someplace on their own; Welch is still in Cell 25; and on and on. I wanted to know more than that the four Idaho kids went back to school and Jack and Abigail are thinking of moving to Italy. Like, Ostin and McKenna, for example. What's going to happen with them? I just... I wanted to have an actual ending, and I don't feel like there was any kind of closure for any characters besides the Vey family, Taylor, Ostin, and Jack (and Abigail, I guess.)
So that's it. My review of this book. It was certainly disappointing, so I will probably be writing some fanfic of the sixth one to make that one the end instead.