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solaceinprose 's review for:
TRUEL1F3
by Jay Kristoff
I was given an ARC for an honest review. Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC.
I took some time to let this book really marinate within me. I have this volatile love/hate relationship with Jay Kristoff. He has this ability to really upset me as a writer in one minute then make me cry and want to hug everyone in the other. He's a great writer. He draws you in with the worlds he builds, the characters he creates, and the question of what is good and what is evil. His characters are never black and white. They always, always usually flounder in the middle, in the grey area. Even if you hate this character one minute, you will find yourself going, "Well, she's right about that," the next. I found myself going back and forth like that with TRUEL1F3.
This book had the potential of being 5 stars. From the beginning, I already liked it well above Dev1at3. This was going to be the epic conclusion to the last two books. We were finally going to see the showdown between Lemon Fresh and Eve. It was going to be a bloody massacre, and I steeled myself against the inevitable; someone was going to die and my heart was going to be ripped out of my chest.
Oh, this book is bloody. This book is rough to read at a time. There is torture and physical abuse all through out this book. We have crazy cults, crazy megalomaniacs, a bounty hunter that just won't die, and pants-on-head crazy lifelikes who want to essentially rule the world. This is what this series has boiled down to: all these people want to rule the Yousay, and someone is going to end up being screwed because of it.
Yet, there was something missing with this book. Every time I expected something to happen, something to really bring it home that none of these characters are safe, something would happen to save them and for a few more pages, they were safe. It almost felt abusive, this sense of false security. I kept waiting for the inevitable, but it never happened. I was so on edge half the time, that by the time the book ended, I was actually mad that spent about the last 200 pages with my breath held for nothing. Don't get me wrong, there are deaths. Some you will cheer about and some that will make you angry. But I expected to be devastated while reading this book, and I found that... I wasn't.
I'm not sure what demographic Jay was trying to write to with this book. It didn't feel Young Adult despite that it's marketed as young adult. There is a lot of cursing in this book. Now, I usually don't care. However, when a book is marketed towards a younger demographic, as a writer, you should be mindful of the language you use. I don't remember the language being as vulgar in the last two, but this book felt as if he got tired writing for a younger audience and quit censoring his words. If you are a parent wanting to buy this for your teen, just be mindful of the language. I don't think anyone under the age of 17 should actually read this for the language alone.
As far as the characters go, I really did adore everyone for the most part. Eve and her lifelike kin annoyed the ever living hell out of me, and I found myself not caring about them at all. That's not a good sign when your main character isn't worth a care, but she became a broken record halfway through Deviate, and she was no different here. She...grows in a sense towards the end of the book, but at that point it's much too late for me to genuinely feel for her.
Lemon Fresh and Cricket continued to remain the very best characters, and I will die on that hill. Preacher remains a waste of writing, and I really don't understand Jay's obsession with that character. He was a beaten dead horse since the last book, and he just started to rot and stink up the pages by the time he showed up in this one. Every time the chapters turn to his POV, I had to refrain from screaming profanities.
The story itself was a bit lacking, and I felt there were plot holes that never got filled or questions that never got answered. Where did deviates come from? How did their powers generate? It couldn't be just a mutation or an evolutionary response to the way the Yousay was. I wanted more of that, but perhaps that was answered in Deviate, and I didn't bother to pay attention because I honestly hate read that book for a good 75% of it. The wrap up of the overall storyline was too neat. I never thought I'd say this, but it was entirely too neat the way the conflict wrapped up. I don't want to get into details and spoil it, but as someone who loved, and I do mean LOVED, the friendship between Eve and Lemon, I found the ending to be a bit unrealistic.
All in all, this was a great series and this was a great end to that series. There were things I wanted more of, and there were things I wanted less of (*coughPREACHERcough*), but I knew going in that this wasn't going to be perfect. I still sobbed at the end, and for me, that was a win.
I took some time to let this book really marinate within me. I have this volatile love/hate relationship with Jay Kristoff. He has this ability to really upset me as a writer in one minute then make me cry and want to hug everyone in the other. He's a great writer. He draws you in with the worlds he builds, the characters he creates, and the question of what is good and what is evil. His characters are never black and white. They always, always usually flounder in the middle, in the grey area. Even if you hate this character one minute, you will find yourself going, "Well, she's right about that," the next. I found myself going back and forth like that with TRUEL1F3.
This book had the potential of being 5 stars. From the beginning, I already liked it well above Dev1at3. This was going to be the epic conclusion to the last two books. We were finally going to see the showdown between Lemon Fresh and Eve. It was going to be a bloody massacre, and I steeled myself against the inevitable; someone was going to die and my heart was going to be ripped out of my chest.
Oh, this book is bloody. This book is rough to read at a time. There is torture and physical abuse all through out this book. We have crazy cults, crazy megalomaniacs, a bounty hunter that just won't die, and pants-on-head crazy lifelikes who want to essentially rule the world. This is what this series has boiled down to: all these people want to rule the Yousay, and someone is going to end up being screwed because of it.
Yet, there was something missing with this book. Every time I expected something to happen, something to really bring it home that none of these characters are safe, something would happen to save them and for a few more pages, they were safe. It almost felt abusive, this sense of false security. I kept waiting for the inevitable, but it never happened. I was so on edge half the time, that by the time the book ended, I was actually mad that spent about the last 200 pages with my breath held for nothing. Don't get me wrong, there are deaths. Some you will cheer about and some that will make you angry. But I expected to be devastated while reading this book, and I found that... I wasn't.
I'm not sure what demographic Jay was trying to write to with this book. It didn't feel Young Adult despite that it's marketed as young adult. There is a lot of cursing in this book. Now, I usually don't care. However, when a book is marketed towards a younger demographic, as a writer, you should be mindful of the language you use. I don't remember the language being as vulgar in the last two, but this book felt as if he got tired writing for a younger audience and quit censoring his words. If you are a parent wanting to buy this for your teen, just be mindful of the language. I don't think anyone under the age of 17 should actually read this for the language alone.
As far as the characters go, I really did adore everyone for the most part. Eve and her lifelike kin annoyed the ever living hell out of me, and I found myself not caring about them at all. That's not a good sign when your main character isn't worth a care, but she became a broken record halfway through Deviate, and she was no different here. She...grows in a sense towards the end of the book, but at that point it's much too late for me to genuinely feel for her.
Lemon Fresh and Cricket continued to remain the very best characters, and I will die on that hill. Preacher remains a waste of writing, and I really don't understand Jay's obsession with that character. He was a beaten dead horse since the last book, and he just started to rot and stink up the pages by the time he showed up in this one. Every time the chapters turn to his POV, I had to refrain from screaming profanities.
The story itself was a bit lacking, and I felt there were plot holes that never got filled or questions that never got answered. Where did deviates come from? How did their powers generate? It couldn't be just a mutation or an evolutionary response to the way the Yousay was. I wanted more of that, but perhaps that was answered in Deviate, and I didn't bother to pay attention because I honestly hate read that book for a good 75% of it. The wrap up of the overall storyline was too neat. I never thought I'd say this, but it was entirely too neat the way the conflict wrapped up. I don't want to get into details and spoil it, but as someone who loved, and I do mean LOVED, the friendship between Eve and Lemon, I found the ending to be a bit unrealistic.
All in all, this was a great series and this was a great end to that series. There were things I wanted more of, and there were things I wanted less of (*coughPREACHERcough*), but I knew going in that this wasn't going to be perfect. I still sobbed at the end, and for me, that was a win.