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ladynovella 's review for:
Ever the Hunted
by Erin Summerill
Well... it got better by the end. That beginning, though...
At the start, Britta is everything terrible about Katniss Everdeen and Bella Swan and every other sullen ice cold Mary Sue bitch template being used in YA literature and being marketed as good role models for teen girls (I weep for future generations of women, if this is all they have to aspire to). Far from being your typical Strong Female Character(tm) that Tumblr loses their shit over, she's a caricature. A stereotype. A cliche. Which I guess is why this book was nominated for the Beehive Award this year and why critics are going nuts over it (I will never understand book reviewers or awards committees).
However, once the book introduced more characters - and interesting characters - like Leif and the Archtraitor and Enat and even Captain Omar (he was actually likable by the end), the book became a whole lot better. I don't give a crap what happens to Cohen and Britta (if you have any doubt that they'll get together by the end of the trilogy, you obviously haven't been paying attention to every carbon copy of YA lit being marketed to teens right now). But what happens to the two kingdoms - Malam and Shaerdan? Yeah, that's cool.
Britta has a lot of characterization to make up, though, if I have to continue reading everything from her point of view. And for the love of Caesar's Tap-Dancing Ghost, can she please stop mooning over Cohen? Or at least give him a personality so I can see why she likes him so much? This is getting tedious.
I may keep going with the series - my husband ended up with a copy of sequel at the most recent YALSA conference. But if these main characters don't improve - and my experience with second books in YA trilogies leaves me dubious that they will - I won't be going onto the third.
At least the covers are pretty, though.
At the start, Britta is everything terrible about Katniss Everdeen and Bella Swan and every other sullen ice cold Mary Sue bitch template being used in YA literature and being marketed as good role models for teen girls (I weep for future generations of women, if this is all they have to aspire to). Far from being your typical Strong Female Character(tm) that Tumblr loses their shit over, she's a caricature. A stereotype. A cliche. Which I guess is why this book was nominated for the Beehive Award this year and why critics are going nuts over it (I will never understand book reviewers or awards committees).
However, once the book introduced more characters - and interesting characters - like Leif and the Archtraitor and Enat and even Captain Omar (he was actually likable by the end), the book became a whole lot better. I don't give a crap what happens to Cohen and Britta (if you have any doubt that they'll get together by the end of the trilogy, you obviously haven't been paying attention to every carbon copy of YA lit being marketed to teens right now). But what happens to the two kingdoms - Malam and Shaerdan? Yeah, that's cool.
Britta has a lot of characterization to make up, though, if I have to continue reading everything from her point of view. And for the love of Caesar's Tap-Dancing Ghost, can she please stop mooning over Cohen? Or at least give him a personality so I can see why she likes him so much? This is getting tedious.
I may keep going with the series - my husband ended up with a copy of sequel at the most recent YALSA conference. But if these main characters don't improve - and my experience with second books in YA trilogies leaves me dubious that they will - I won't be going onto the third.
At least the covers are pretty, though.