I suppose I’ll get at least the next book in the series; I’m not particularly in love with it, but I don’t hate it (at least at this point) to stop reading. But I’m going to not make any decisions on buying the last book until I’ve read the third.
My opinions of the characters have not really changed all that much; Ronan, Noah and Gainsey are my three favorites. Noah is weird bit likable in a harmless kind of way, Ronan is the poster child for the variation “anger is just depression turned outward” of an old saying, and Gainsey is just a rich, sheltered little cinnamon roll who is trying to be better and has gotten in maybe 95%. Blue just spent most of this book either angry at someone, or angsting over either Gainsey or Adam, so I would put her as a second-tier favorite. I have a strong and rampant dislike for Adam though; he is one of the most self-centered, self-pitying, self-delusional characters I have ever met. He goes around thinking that the fact that he goes from 0 to 100 rage-wise and that thinking that punching people would be a good idea is a sign that maybe his father was right to be an abuser, and not a sign that Adam needs serious psychological help. I would put him in an unholy trifecta with Oliver Marks from If We Were Villains and Richard Papen from The Secret History. Or that he would probably be a better fit personality-wise as Declan’s brother than Ronan is. I mean yes, Declan, I know that with your younger brother being your father’s favorite and your youngest being your mother’s whose favorite are you, but the disgust and contempt you have for most of your family is just dripping off the page. I feel like Declan and Kravinksy are two extremes of a character, with The Gray Man’s brother sitting right in the middle. The women of 300 Fox Way bring an interesting dynamic to the book; the whole sisterhood, found family aesthetic is great, but isn’t the “group of women who become hypersexual when a man is around to the point of almost spitting on one to claim dibs” a little done by now?
Waking Glendower might be like that. Fewer angels attending, and maybe a heavier Welsh accent. Slightly less judgment.
The search for Owen Glendower continues to (slowly) build; at this point I don’t know how much slowly the plot is going to move to stretch the search out for two more books.
And for some reason, although it was not impossible to believe Glendower was still somehow alive after hundreds of years, it was impossible to believe he was able to pull off this feat beneath tons of water.
Between that and the Blue/Gainsey will they/won’t they, the plot is dragging. Never mind the fact that the whole “we can’t tell Adam” Blue/Gainsey/Adam thing reminded me a little too much of the Cordelia/James/Matthew fiasco in Chain of Thorns. Though I guess seeing as all six characters there are under the age of 20, it’s just normal teenage uber-drama.
Do you have a better idea” she demanded. “Maybe we can hurl some stuff into the underbrush! Or hit something! That solves everything! Maybe we can be really manly and break things.
But even with all the negatives I found in the book, I would still like to be able to just dream up a Chainsaw of my own though.