thepunktheory
Written on Feb 5, 2023
We made it to the final part of Serpent & Dove. I dare say, I’m doing well in terms of catching up with book series! And I’m glad to report that this was a great series to read with an amazing third installment.
Gods & Monsters gives us more character development which I really appreciate. It touches on a lot of different issues, different types of trauma and how different people deal with it, and strategies to overcome it. On that front, this book certainly gets two thumbs up.
The story finally gets to where we were going for a while now. To be honest, I felt like this could have ended in the second book – the reason not to seemed a bit flimsy to me. However, this novel is really good, so I’ll let that slide. Especially because this one features such a big plot twist that hit me out of nowhere. I honestly hadn’t seen this coming but it was sooo smart!
There are two bits of criticism I want to address, though. First of all, throughout these books, we meet Gods. They are, however, not allowed to get personally involved. What exactly constitutes such involvement? Where is the line? This also felt super flimsy and just seemed to be whatever was convenient for the plot. The second point is something I already mentioned in my review of the first book. We get chapters from either Lou’s or Reid’s perspective. However, they are not super distinctive in writing. Yes, it says on the first page of each chapter whose perspective this is going to be from, but I tend to not notice that. And then I’m an entire page in and get confused only to then realize, oh, it’s not a Lou chapter, it’s a Reid chapter. Maybe I’m just spoilt from George R. R. Martin’s books (for the love of God finish writing them already!). In those novels, you’d read one sentence and you instantly knew which character this is. I don’t think I’ve seen it this well done in any other book so far.