A review by charmaineac
Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

2.0

This book took me so long to get through. Also, I found it rather scary (it freaked me out!).

The world of Incarceron and the Realm, and the premise of Sapphique (and Incarceron for that matter) were so, so creative. Seriously, there was so much attention to detail!

However, I must say that I hated the switching narratives. I felt that the character development was lacking, and I'd attribute that partly to the triple-narrative that slashed off character breakthroughs to continue another plotline. I know this added more "suspense," but it simply became annoying after a while. After some time, I stop caring about the previous plotline (usually by the time it finally came back).

Unfortunately, I also immediately thought of a major plot point
Spoileraka that Jared was Sapphique
very early into the FIRST book (not even this one!). It was meant to be a big, shocking reveal, but it fell flat to me.

I hated the deus ex machina-type ending in the Realm. What good did that do? I felt like conflicts were so drawn up but cleaned up so "neatly" by the end of it. The solutions to the problems in the story fell short. It was as though Catherine Fisher put herself in a corner and had no way to end the story in a "happy" or "realistic" way (which made it worse that she tried writing a happy ending at the end). Oh well.