The Liberator (Dante Walker, #2)

by Victoria Scott

[Ashley]

Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews

3.5 Stars

I have to admit, I was a little nervous going into The Liberator. The synopsis hints at a possible love triangle and I was dreading the thought of The Liberator suffering from "second book love triangle/relationship problems" syndrome. Luckily, that is so not the case! I am beyond delighted to report that The Liberator has absolutely no love triangles!

Aspen turns out to be a kick ass character. If anything, her relationship with Dante is a brother/sister kind of thing. At first, I wasn't totally sure I liked Aspen. She was kind of one of those "Daddy sucks so I'm going to rebel and party and do drugs" kind of girls.. and it sort of annoyed me. She just looked for trouble to drown out her problems. But as the book went on, Aspen really grew and changed and turned into a pretty awesome character! She loses some of her "trying to be a rebel" attitude, but she's also an insanely kick-ass fighter. That girl's got moves!

I do have to say, I don't think The Liberator is very plot-based (at least not until the last quarter of the book). There are long periods where it feels like not much is happening, but I think this is due to the fact that The Liberator is really about Dante's character development. It's about him trying to adjust to life as a liberator and overcoming his past. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just pointing it out. I quite enjoyed watching Dante struggle with himself and his new position!

I do have two gripes though:

#1 - Charlie was ANNOYING at the beginning. She suddenly does a lot of partying and hanging out with sketchy people and isn't all that forthcoming with Dante. I was kind of pissed at her. I thought she was acting stupid. Turns out there was a reason for this, but I thought it was kind of a lame reason.

#2 - The ending. Although I kind of like how it set up for book 3, I thought the ending made so much of The Liberator feel pointless. The book was all about protecting Charlie's soul, then getting her soul back once Dante realized he didn't have it. So he plans this big trip into Hell to get Charlie's soul back and brings Aspen along with him. So after this big intense journey into Hell, Dante gets the soul and has to leave Aspen behind in exchange. Then, it turns out, Dante didn't get Charlie's soul at all.. he got his own soul. So that big huge journey and all that "protecting Charlie's soul" stuff was for nothing. And on top of that, he left behind one of the most important people, according to some prophecy. I just hate it in books when a character goes through a ton of trouble or on some big epic quest, then it all ends up being kind of pointless. And I'm sure that Dante having his soul inside him will count for something in book 3, but I still felt like it was a bit of a let down.

Although I didn't love The Liberator quite as much as The Collector (which I gave 4.5 stars), I still really enjoyed the book! Although there were some slow moments plot-wise, it was full of some great character development for Dante, and I loved Aspen's kick-ass-ness! Turns out, that girl pretty much rocks.