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A review by jrayereads
We Unleash the Merciless Storm by Tehlor Kay Mejia
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Soooooo initially I thought that reading from Carmen’s perspective was going to be a huge improvement. I thought that getting to see the inner workings of La Voz would be really interesting. But in following Carmen’s POV, I was subjected to a few hundred pages of her having to have the same arguments with multiple La Voz characters on whether or not she’s a traitor. This key conflict was present throughout the entire book and it got so tiring after the fourth or fifth argument about her motivations and whether or not she’s in love with Dani - which is an internal AND external discussion that happens entirely without Dani even being present.
Speaking of, we don’t even see Dani until around halfway through the book. It felt as though there were interesting elements of her character that stopped being developed because we just didn’t get enough time with her. Also, did we really end the duology without any reference to her parents? So much of Dani’s motivation was her love and dedication to her parents and where she grew up, but we finished the book without any sort of resolution in that area. I would’ve loved to either have a reunion there or even just a reference to her bringing Carmen to her hometown.
We had a bit of a villain swap to be someone within La Voz, which I thought was weird. Medio was a perfectly fine villain if we could have gotten more time with him and Dani in the aftermath of the accident at the end of the first book to keep him a consistent threat and maybe show how his family is dealing with the loss of his mother/the investigation. I found him pretty unthreatening by the time he finally came back to be the big threat at the end.
Once again this book was very well written and the audiobook narrator was excellent, but it definitely felt to me like we sacrificed good character development for a pretty circular plot that kept rehashing the same few arguments between characters without a consistent momentum getting us to a satisfying resolution.
Speaking of, we don’t even see Dani until around halfway through the book. It felt as though there were interesting elements of her character that stopped being developed because we just didn’t get enough time with her. Also, did we really end the duology without any reference to her parents? So much of Dani’s motivation was her love and dedication to her parents and where she grew up, but we finished the book without any sort of resolution in that area. I would’ve loved to either have a reunion there or even just a reference to her bringing Carmen to her hometown.
We had a bit of a villain swap to be someone within La Voz, which I thought was weird. Medio was a perfectly fine villain if we could have gotten more time with him and Dani in the aftermath of the accident at the end of the first book to keep him a consistent threat and maybe show how his family is dealing with the loss of his mother/the investigation. I found him pretty unthreatening by the time he finally came back to be the big threat at the end.
Once again this book was very well written and the audiobook narrator was excellent, but it definitely felt to me like we sacrificed good character development for a pretty circular plot that kept rehashing the same few arguments between characters without a consistent momentum getting us to a satisfying resolution.