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A review by katyanaish
One Apocalypse by Kristy Cunning
4.0
I loved it. I really did. It was largely a beautiful finish, and I cried. Like, a lot.
I only knocked a star off because the epilogue bummed me out. Here's why:
The second epilogue, 5 years later, was even more of a let-down. She still seems utterly powerless, and she still seems like an imbecile. Paca was rash, and her mind pinged around on tangents, but she was never an imbecile. They were all tangents that made sense, logical leaps, that felt more like genius than imbecilic. As a whole, it actually made me very sad, because it felt like Paca lost everything. Her memories, her power, her mind, ... and I just can't read that as a happy ending. I can't. Now she feels like a child the boys have to babysit, rather than the badass who saved them repeatedly and had stellar intuition - at least partially echo memories - that let her get things handled. This feels like a poor imitator. I'm glad that the boys and she formed a more cohesive unit, but I honestly think that was more a function of time - Paca didn't get the 5 years this pale imitation-Paca got.
It just made the whole story seem worthless. She sacrificed herself - again - to save her boys. Who never even really appreciated her. Like, all their relationship issues were magically solved with her death and reset into a weaker, dumber version of herself. Like, what, this badass heroine needed to be reduced to a powerless, imbecilic child that needs constant caretaking - always falling down (so much that the guys say catching her has become a reflex) or needing to be held to not fall off a balcony?? are you fucking kidding me?? - in order to finally become an equal member in the bond with the guys? That sucks.
I adored everything until the epilogue, but that broke my heart just a bit.
I only knocked a star off because the epilogue bummed me out. Here's why:
Spoiler
It just wasn't her. I mean, I know that it kind of was, but ... honestly, she seemed like an idiot. I kind of shrugged it off in the first epilogue, because you can forgive some weirdness (penis clown costume and beaver underwear??) just out of the utter loneliness of being Ghost Girl for 5 years. But the Ghost Girl of book 1 was confident, but not an imbecile, so aside from being thrilled that her plan worked and she came back, it was a little bit of a let-down.The second epilogue, 5 years later, was even more of a let-down. She still seems utterly powerless, and she still seems like an imbecile. Paca was rash, and her mind pinged around on tangents, but she was never an imbecile. They were all tangents that made sense, logical leaps, that felt more like genius than imbecilic. As a whole, it actually made me very sad, because it felt like Paca lost everything. Her memories, her power, her mind, ... and I just can't read that as a happy ending. I can't. Now she feels like a child the boys have to babysit, rather than the badass who saved them repeatedly and had stellar intuition - at least partially echo memories - that let her get things handled. This feels like a poor imitator. I'm glad that the boys and she formed a more cohesive unit, but I honestly think that was more a function of time - Paca didn't get the 5 years this pale imitation-Paca got.
It just made the whole story seem worthless. She sacrificed herself - again - to save her boys. Who never even really appreciated her. Like, all their relationship issues were magically solved with her death and reset into a weaker, dumber version of herself. Like, what, this badass heroine needed to be reduced to a powerless, imbecilic child that needs constant caretaking - always falling down (so much that the guys say catching her has become a reflex) or needing to be held to not fall off a balcony?? are you fucking kidding me?? - in order to finally become an equal member in the bond with the guys? That sucks.
I adored everything until the epilogue, but that broke my heart just a bit.