*****SPOILERS*****
The Giggles
I
think these three were intended as small, throw-away humour yet they tickled me
a lot.
When Lena asks if Link understands
something, he replied, ‘Not usually, no.’ Fantastic.
It’s noted that the singer couldn’t
be Link because ‘too many of the notes were right.’ Brilliant.
Xavier is described as an ‘ancient
temple wombat’ which is pure perfection.
Thinkers
When
I opened this book, I wasn’t expecting to be thrown into deep thought so often.
‘You can’t unpop a bubble.’
Goodness, that’s deep. It’s akin to the saying ‘you can’t unscramble and egg.’
Some things can’t go back or be redone.
It always annoys me when people say
there’s a meaning to life. It annoys me that people spend so much time looking
for meaning rather than spend time living. Take some agency over your life! So
it was nice to see a character say, ‘Maybe there isn’t a meaning to life. Maybe
there’s only a meaning to living.’
For the first time in four books, I
found a line of Lena’s poetry that I actually liked! ‘Misery doesn’t come
cheap.’
Convenience
Most
stories will have one or two bits of the plot that are convenient. Some are too
inconvenient to be believable.
Prue tells Ethan she’s mapped out
the path for him where she could. This extends to beyond the river, which
requires river’s eyes to cross. How did she obtain these?
Ethan’s other aunts, Grace and
Mercy, know about the Caster world. This detail is completely unnecessary. It adds
nothing to the story and doesn’t sit right with plausibility.
Bade, the cat-lion that belongs to
Macon’s sister, just happened to be around when he was wanted as a guard. So
that was too convenient. Plus we know Boo can look aggressive, frightening and
strong, so Bade wasn’t even needed. It was almost like the authors wanted to
remind us that Bade existed.
Problems
There
were so many problems. Not as many as book two but definitely more than seems right.
Ethan says that Genevieve was the
first caster to use the Book of Moons to resurrect someone. Considering she did
that in the 1800s and the Book of Moons is ancient, I doubt Ethan’s assertion
very much.
So it says ‘Ridley spit’, referring
to an action Ridley had done. That is, it’s in the past. The past tense of
‘spit’ is ‘spat’ so the sentence should have read ‘Ridley spat.’
Whilst in Xavier’s cave, Ethan loses
his memories. He gains them back once he touches the Book of Moons. The memory
loss only lasted two and a half pages so it was really pointless. The story
would have been better served without it.
When Ethan gets back to life, he
knocks on his door. ‘It was Amma who answered.’ Well, yeah, because she was the
only other person there. Who else could have answered?
Why
do they make the crossword a puzzle?
You’re sending a message, not
creating something to challenge people. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
Being complicated serves no purpose. Using ‘grave’ instead of ‘serious’ would
have been a good start.
Also, how did Ethan know that Lena
knows the name of the river’s eye? If you’d only just heard of it, you have no
way to know if Lena knows its name so just saying ‘river’s eye’ seem riskier
than necessary.
The
confrontation with Angelus was short and boring. Not only was it the conclusion
of this novel but it was the conclusion of this series. There should have been
more interest, more excitement, more… well, more. Also, Angelus had plenty of
time and skill to prevent his page being ripped from the Caster Chronicles. Yet
he allows it to happen. For all his power, intelligence and plotting, it wasn’t
convincing.
Annoying
Characters
To
have characters say and do these things adds believability. So they should be
here. But it doesn’t stop it being annoying and frustrating.
There we go! Lena gives us the
obligatory teenage ‘You have no idea how I feel.’ Bloody Hell. Ethan sees
Serafine and calls her a ghost. She says they’re alike. Ethan gives the
obligatory teenage, ‘We have nothing in common!’
Lena keeps on saying Ethan dying to
save the universe wasn’t worth it, that life doesn’t matter without him. Give.
Me. A. Break. Also, the thing is that if he didn’t sacrifice himself, you would
have watched him suffer through the end of the world.
When Ethan gets back to life, he
touches Lena and bad things don’t happen. They declare that ‘now we could be
together.’ Bloody hell, I object! I have objected to this mind set since the
start of the series and each book convinces me more of the stupidity of it all.
As
the concluding book in a series, it lacked… self-recognition, I think. It was
constructed like a regular novel rather than having a sense of finality, drama
and polish. (I would expect more attention to be paid to a concluding book by
the editors to make sure it was as good, and as empty of mistakes, as
possible.) It was an interesting book but it didn’t serve its purpose.
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