(This is a review for the second book in the series. Potential spoilers for the first book)
Sari has finally found true love. She has found a way to move her home and start life anew. Though that is a bit hampered by the fact that she is dead. Minya is out for revenge and is the one that holds onto Sari’s thin thread of life. Can Sari save not only herself but her siblings and Lazlo from oblivion.
For me this series has seemed more Minya’s series than Sari and Lazlo’s. While I like their characters I felt like Minya’s storyline was the more intriguing and interesting of the three.
I thought the way that Minya’s and Nova’s stories of revenge and anger were told were interesting. I felt like Nova’s story shocked Minya and put what she was fighting for in perspective. Minya was blinded by her anger and her fear. She wanted to fix something that could never be fixed.
We see that Minya has been the one holding too many secrets for way too long. She knows what life was like before The Carnage. She knows what she had to do in order to save her siblings. She is a child that had to make adult decisions that became etched into her soul.
While Nova was angry at being separated from her sister. She was single minded and she was ruthless. We see that she stopped caring about anyone and I think seeing her and where she ended up shocked Minya. I liked the way the story used Nova’s story to give Minya to see the consequences of her actions.
I also like that we learn more about the different realms or realities in this book. There was a good hint at where a series could continue to go in this world. Particularly with Thyon. I am very curious to know more about him and would love to get a whole series or book about him alone. I feel like there is a deep story there to explore.
I stated it above but I felt like Sari and Lazlo were telling this story but shouldn’t have been telling this story. I felt like their story ended in the first book. They both got what they wanted, they fixed their issues and in this one they became more a victim of circumstance than anything else.
I felt like they had no conflict or place to go after the first book. There was no real development of either of their characters. They were stagnant. Not saying I didn’t like them but I wanted to know them better, feel more connected to them. In the end I just felt like I wanted to get around them to get to the other characters.
We got hints at the original gods story but we didn’t get nearly as much detail as I would have liked. It started off promising. We got Nova’s story which was the beginning of Skathis and his crew but then it was rushed through. We got a paragraph describing how he got to Weep and that was it.
I felt like we needed to know more about them. I wanted to understand them and why they were so cruel and evil. Why did they choose this city to use as a hunting ground? Why did they go after all the women here? Did they do that other places? What were their plans? What were their histories? It may have been too much for this story but I felt like we needed a bit more to them.
I gave this book 3 stars. I think if it had answered a few more questions and tied Lazlo and Sari’s characters into the story more I would have felt like it was more complete.
“Have an enemy, be an enemy. Hate those who hate you. Hate them better. Hate them worse. Be the monster they fear the most.” (pg. 35)
“You can be on the same side and have different ideas.” (pg. 110)
“The mind is good at hiding things, but there’s something it cannot do: It can’e erase. It can only conceal, and concealed things are not gone. They rot. They fester, they leak potions. They ache and stink. They hiss like serpents in tall grass.” (pg. 227)
“There comes a certain point with a hope or a dream, when you either give it up or give up everything else.” (pg 328)
“Wishes don’t just come true. They’re only the target you paint around what you want. You still have to hit the bull’s-eye yourself.” (pg. 507)
Stories Have Power 