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A review by thepandy
The Arkhel Conundrum by Sarah Ash
3.0
I was super excited to read this book as I had so enjoyed the first three. While the first three books didn't end very neatly, I did find the beginning, middle, and end satisfying.
The fourth book has been another story entirely. The book introduces new characters and new plots mostly unrelated to the first set of books. We still follow Gavril and Kiukiu from time to time (and on rare occasion, Eugene), but it feels like A LOT of the book follows Kaspar Linnaius (who I don't give a grain of sand about), Gerard Bernay, and Toran Arkhel. The book starts with promise, mostly exploring Kiukiu's dilemma of having to honor her promise in the previous books to Anagini & Gavril coping with the loss of his powers, and then sags IMMENSELY by spending 70% of the book on other characters that are devoted to a huge contest to build an airplane. A little bit of the Arkhel clan wars are stirred back up, but are still largely a backdrop. Honestly, of almost 700 pages, probably only the first 150 and last 150 really interested me. I really disliked the stereotypical drama of happy married couples suddenly are discontent and hide things from each other as women focus on raising their children and the men are distracted by reminiscing over the "good ole days". Gavril becomes petulant and whiny and, for some reason, he and Kiukiu can't seem to talk about ANYTHING that happened in the past books and try to pretend everything is all peachy, but it ultimately drives them apart in some of the most childish ways possible. Then to focus mostly on new characters that I don't really care about was disappointing. Eventually they build up, but meh.
The book ends on a cliffhanger, implying there's another to come. I'm not sure yet if I'll read it. I sped through the past books, but it took me a few months to get through this one. I strained to get through each chapter. The writing was beautiful, as always, but all the details that went into the flying machine competition were so superfluous. Even looking back, I wonder what purpose they really served.
The fourth book has been another story entirely. The book introduces new characters and new plots mostly unrelated to the first set of books. We still follow Gavril and Kiukiu from time to time (and on rare occasion, Eugene), but it feels like A LOT of the book follows Kaspar Linnaius (who I don't give a grain of sand about), Gerard Bernay, and Toran Arkhel. The book starts with promise, mostly exploring Kiukiu's dilemma of having to honor her promise in the previous books to Anagini & Gavril coping with the loss of his powers, and then sags IMMENSELY by spending 70% of the book on other characters that are devoted to a huge contest to build an airplane. A little bit of the Arkhel clan wars are stirred back up, but are still largely a backdrop. Honestly, of almost 700 pages, probably only the first 150 and last 150 really interested me. I really disliked the stereotypical drama of happy married couples suddenly are discontent and hide things from each other as women focus on raising their children and the men are distracted by reminiscing over the "good ole days". Gavril becomes petulant and whiny and, for some reason, he and Kiukiu can't seem to talk about ANYTHING that happened in the past books and try to pretend everything is all peachy, but it ultimately drives them apart in some of the most childish ways possible. Then to focus mostly on new characters that I don't really care about was disappointing. Eventually they build up, but meh.
The book ends on a cliffhanger, implying there's another to come. I'm not sure yet if I'll read it. I sped through the past books, but it took me a few months to get through this one. I strained to get through each chapter. The writing was beautiful, as always, but all the details that went into the flying machine competition were so superfluous. Even looking back, I wonder what purpose they really served.