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aurimoon 's review for:
The Righteous
by Renée Ahdieh
I need time to absorb what I read but this book was pretty messy compared to her previous works :/ I didn't pick up on a plot until 60% through the story and there were more POVs than necessary.
12/8: The Righteous pretty much picks up immediately after Celine and Bastian's disappearance, but from Pippa and Arjun's perspective. I'm generally not used to switching main characters throughout a series, so this was a bit jarring as I had difficulty remembering what last happened. I do understand why the author made this choice though- most of the action centers around P/A. Celine and Bastian appear at the halfway point, but because they were such side characters by this point, I felt like their (3??) chapters could've just been eliminated altogether. Michael was pretty much useless as well and I would have preferred if she kept it to P/A's POV instead of 5+.
We get more insight into Pippa and Arjun's backgrounds and motivations, but I'm not sure they developed as characters in this book. Watching them fall in love was ...not out of nowhere but far more abrupt than I expected. I still don't know if the romance or the plot was the highlight of this story.
The plot was kinda all over the place, and I wasn't sure what direction we were taking until the end. I think the whole story takes place over a matter of days and was incredibly fast. The first half was P/A Doing Stuff in faeland; Pippa on her search to find Celine, and Arjun trying to keep her alive. For a series that promotes itself as vampires in New Orleans, 95% of the book takes place in this realm, which required a lot of world-building, so it felt like a whole different book. Looking back now, the issues brought up at the beginning was never brought up later in the story. Book 4 appears to feature Celine as the main character again, so I'm not sure if this book was just to set up the world for the finale. I do like that Korean and Indian mythology made appearances but I wish it was more prevalent in the story.
Overall, I'm quite disappointed in book 3, but I look forward to the finale just so we can get some closure on this series.
12/8: The Righteous pretty much picks up immediately after Celine and Bastian's disappearance, but from Pippa and Arjun's perspective. I'm generally not used to switching main characters throughout a series, so this was a bit jarring as I had difficulty remembering what last happened. I do understand why the author made this choice though- most of the action centers around P/A. Celine and Bastian appear at the halfway point, but because they were such side characters by this point, I felt like their (3??) chapters could've just been eliminated altogether. Michael was pretty much useless as well and I would have preferred if she kept it to P/A's POV instead of 5+.
We get more insight into Pippa and Arjun's backgrounds and motivations, but I'm not sure they developed as characters in this book. Watching them fall in love was ...not out of nowhere but far more abrupt than I expected. I still don't know if the romance or the plot was the highlight of this story.
The plot was kinda all over the place, and I wasn't sure what direction we were taking until the end. I think the whole story takes place over a matter of days and was incredibly fast. The first half was P/A Doing Stuff in faeland; Pippa on her search to find Celine, and Arjun trying to keep her alive. For a series that promotes itself as vampires in New Orleans, 95% of the book takes place in this realm, which required a lot of world-building, so it felt like a whole different book. Looking back now, the issues brought up at the beginning was never brought up later in the story. Book 4 appears to feature Celine as the main character again, so I'm not sure if this book was just to set up the world for the finale. I do like that Korean and Indian mythology made appearances but I wish it was more prevalent in the story.
Overall, I'm quite disappointed in book 3, but I look forward to the finale just so we can get some closure on this series.