Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed The Sweet Far Thing, but it wasn't what I had hoped for. As a whole, the book was well-written. but much like the last book in the Twilight Series (Breaking Dawn), I had some issues with the way the series ended.
The good: Gemma and Felicity are about to make their debut in London society, so there's a lot of talk about balls and whatnot, which I always enjoy. The parts where they go to London were my favorites, and I really liked getting into Gemma's family dynamic, especially when Gemma tried using magic to change some of their situations. At Spence I love the interaction between the girls and with Mrs. Nightwing, this book did a good job with making you wonder which teachers were good vs "bad" (kind of like Snape). The final fight in the realms was also really well-done.
The bad: In general, I think the book was too long. At 800+ pages, there were certain pages where I started to skim ... which I definitely wasn't doing with the first two books.
I won't ruin it for you, but all I have to say is you'll likely be disappointed by the ending. I guess I have to commend Libba Bray for not going the "expected" route, but judging from most of the reviews I read on Amazon, most others who read the book felt the same way as I did. I'd describe the ending as more "bittersweet" than happy, although everyone seems to get what they want for the most part. At least the characters experienced some setbacks and suffered (minor) consequences, unlike Breaking Dawn where everything was wrapped up in a happy little package, where no one suffered or had to give up anything for what they wanted. I thought that was weird because Gemma always made references to the silly books Ann read and how they were so cliche because nothing bad ever happened, the poor girl always triumphed and they just werent realistic.
Also, even the "bad"characters never really were truly evil - there was always a good side of them or some slip that made them seem more likable or at least made you realize where they were coming from. I guess she was trying to show that everyone has a dark side (even Gemma) but I would have liked for at least one character to be SERIOUSLY evil.
Anyway, I'd still recommend reading this one, even just to find out how the series ends, because the first two books are amazing.
It's a great book, isn't it? I just finished it last night and was devastated that there won't be anymore Gemma books to look forward to.
ReplyDeleteI thought the ending was okay but yeah, the Kartik part... :(
Can't wait for the movie to come out though.
Here's my review of The Sweet Far Thing!