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bent 's review for:
The Thousand Names
by Django Wexler
Wow! This was looking like a four or five star book until the ending, which sucked and tainted my view of the rest. I thought Wexler did a great job with the battles and devised a plot that really moved along. I was really enjoying the book in the early-going, but found it started to lag a bit when they march off into the desert. I think the book could have been edited to tighten it up a bit. It seemed overlong.
I could have used a few more characters' POVs. I started to get tired of Marcus and Winter near the end of the book. As a reader, you can figure out some of the revelations coming before they arrive, but Marcus seems almost witless. Everything is a shock to him. Even when it seems obvious, he has to have it explained. And Winter is just a little bit too perfect - always coming up with the right plan, nothing managing to slow her down. What happens to her in the last scene just takes that to the nth degree. You have lots of other characters, do you have to have the same one save the day over and over again?
I also got very tired of Winter's recurring dream. I hate reading dream sequences in books, or seeing them in movies. Wexler has established early on that Winter has recurring dreams about her old friend - does he need to spend a couple of pages late in the book describing them again? I skipped over the last one, as I just couldn't bear to read about it again.
I feel bad about posting a mostly negative review, as I really enjoyed parts of this book, but I just thought it flagged as the book went on, and then all of a sudden included all sorts of mystical elements in the last scene that had only been hinted at before, and included such a long, drawn out climatic scene, with a "only Winter can save the day" theme that really sucked the life out of the book.
So good book, disappointing ending, and now I'm not sure if I'll continue with this series. It's too bad because until they went into the cave, I was thinking that I had my next few books all mapped out.
I could have used a few more characters' POVs. I started to get tired of Marcus and Winter near the end of the book. As a reader, you can figure out some of the revelations coming before they arrive, but Marcus seems almost witless. Everything is a shock to him. Even when it seems obvious, he has to have it explained. And Winter is just a little bit too perfect - always coming up with the right plan, nothing managing to slow her down. What happens to her in the last scene just takes that to the nth degree. You have lots of other characters, do you have to have the same one save the day over and over again?
I also got very tired of Winter's recurring dream. I hate reading dream sequences in books, or seeing them in movies. Wexler has established early on that Winter has recurring dreams about her old friend - does he need to spend a couple of pages late in the book describing them again? I skipped over the last one, as I just couldn't bear to read about it again.
I feel bad about posting a mostly negative review, as I really enjoyed parts of this book, but I just thought it flagged as the book went on, and then all of a sudden included all sorts of mystical elements in the last scene that had only been hinted at before, and included such a long, drawn out climatic scene, with a "only Winter can save the day" theme that really sucked the life out of the book.
So good book, disappointing ending, and now I'm not sure if I'll continue with this series. It's too bad because until they went into the cave, I was thinking that I had my next few books all mapped out.