Reviewed by sa090 on
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Because of how we ended up last time, I was really looking forward to seeing how this story will end. That being said, after such a long time has passed its easy to forget a few details here and there, but our co-authors has a way to solve this. Before the novel actually starts, there are a few pages of a summary of the prequel’s plot line for anyone who might’ve forgotten something from then till now provided by our authors which I thought was pretty cool and insanely convenient, really wish more authors would do that for really long waits in not so amazing books. That aside, the plot of Undying is more of a dealing with an impending doom when compared to the exploration side of Unearthed, to me personally, I really missed that side, but it also seemed like a natural progression so I’ll give it a pass
It’s also helpful that in this book, our protagonists are trying to make sense of the situation as they go by which gives it a certain level of mystery as well. So it’s not completely thrown out of the window! In the end, the common-ness of the plot somehow made it less of an interesting read if plot was my only focus, so I’m very thankful that I’m more of a character driven reader than anything else, because the characters in this book were definitely the main focus and more important point of focus. We got to see Jules and Mia alongside more than a few new faces (and old), I like to see characters grow depending on what they had to go through in earlier books and this one showed me that to some extent, for some characters more than others. What I didn’t enjoy whatsoever about this book, is Jules’ continued usage of extremely unneeded vocabulary, the romance being way more important than an alien invasion at times and once again the blame game that never stopped.
On the topic of vocabulary, I just need to sit down with someone who can explain to me the relevance, necessity and actual need of using the words “Perfututi” and “Mehercule” other than being pretentious. I don’t understand, could be because I haven’t studied Latin nor understand the way it works, but I’m really really curious as to why it needs to be added to this extent. I wouldn’t be so hopped up on this topic, if I didn’t spend at least 15 minutes after every single time they appeared researching online so I can understand it better. For the romance on the other hand, I do understand that it’s a YA book, where I’m dealing with teenagers and the entire basis on this relationship in particular was born because one boy and one girl existed in the same vicinity for an extended persons of time, but I really wished that it’ll be put aside so we can focus on the events themselves. I’m not saying it was on a sickening degree thankfully, but I also didn’t expect to read as many thoughts concerning it as I did especially with how the book went. Thankfully, there was a voice of reason around, albeit being somewhat useless.
The real worst offender for me here is the blame game, I hated it in book one and I loathe it in book two. Jules and Mia haven’t known each other for very long, and both started out the story with different albeit also similar goals in the grand scheme of things. But because they spent that minuscule time together, Jules in particular comes off as this self entitled idiot who gets offended over the tiniest things Mia says in this book when it comes to prioritizing her original goal and maybe not caring so much about his. Is this wrong? Hell no, she has every right to do so just like he does. The problem for me here is that he is still completely focused on his goal, and it takes priority for obvious reasons, but the difference here is Mia is completely supportive, yet the minute she starts talking in logical reason, this guy starts acting like a sullen idiot who is supposedly “betrayed” by her logical and HUMAN thinking.
I didn’t enjoy it at all and I am definitely sulky about the twist at the end, would’ve one pretty quick and easy solution lol. Now that I’ve talked in length about the characters and my issues, I’ll discuss the other positives of the book. For instances, the mystery surrounding the Undying finally getting talked about in details was an awesome thing to see, mainly because I figured the outline of it out in book 1 so even if they tried to get me to think different here and there in this book, I’m glad to see I was right and I did find the whole explanation very interesting so bonus for that. The world building in the book wasn’t as prominent in this book given the location, but I did enjoy briefly seeing some of the new locations and learning more about the IA itself.
I do think it’s a very interesting book, it’s just got these pretty annoying things about it that makes it hard to love in its entirety for me :)
Final rating: 3.5/5
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 15 January, 2019: Finished reading
- 15 January, 2019: Reviewed