Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Mini Review: The Murder Complex - Lindsay Cummings and City of Heavenly Fire - Cassandra Clare

Alright, this Mini Review thing happened because I'm lazy to expand both into proper reviews but hey cut me a break alright? Life is so much more interesting when I don't have to go to college for another two weeks and I can giggle scoff at Korean series in peace.

Now why did I say that?

 
The Murder Complex (The Murder Complex, #1)The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

See, now this is a good concept. It really is, even though the whole book features some ideas which I have seen before in other books. Besides I think there is an avalanche of dystopian books happening so it’s sort of a challenge to come up with an entirely new concept. And this is only the first book so maybe I can’t judge this world yet. In other words, I am reserving my opinion with regards to the plot - there is a strong sense of deja-vu.

I do not know how many times I have complained that the pace of a book is so slow, so slow. This one took me entirely by surprise. For the first time I am complaining that the pace of this book is fast. I just finished a book yesterday and I was just going to ruffle the pages of this one and pretty soon I was reading this and soon I was done with it. It’s not a compliment when I say this book was fast because it means I do not feel anything for the characters. Meadow and Zephyr are (unofficially/officially/one-sidedly?) are an item and that happened like this *snaps fingers* (yes, they have a connection that is yet to be explained but it's still weird). I don’t know what to feel about her father. There is “sibling protective tendency” (wow, I just made that as a thing) in this book as well, but yes, Peri is adorable. Zephyr and Meadow - I don’t know if I would root for either of them yet. Their character development needs work. In fact every character needs to be fledged out. Hopefully in the next book that's going to happen.

And the cussing. Skitz, there wasn’t any fluxing need for it. The Initiative took over just some years ago (not even an entire generation back) and somehow that doesn't warrant language evolution.

I will read the next book though. That one is going to decide whether I will continue the series in secret or THROUGH A MEGAPHONE or discontinue it.


City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What a journey this has been. From "HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS BOOK?" to "It's really good so far" to "Why wasn't this truncated as a trilogy?" to "Jace makes me want to gouge out my eyes with his gold anatomy" to "I am reading this book for the sole sake of Magnus Bane" to "Wow, that WAS a finale".

Phew.

Unfortunately, this book took forever to come out since the last one and ,um, thankfully Clare had the foresight to brush up some episodes I might have forgotten, and it was done strategically. I knew there was a war coming, I mean hello, every finale features one. So this wasn't a surprise but uh, it still took me by surprise. I was expecting more Jace/Clary angst and while that did happen (and still was overused and overboard and over-featured that I skipped some pages) it wasn't just that. The plot actually moved (yes, it implies there wasn't any need for that many pages).

Now it was towards the last 200 pages that the momentum increased and I sat up way past my bedtime. The ending gave me a sense of deja-vu and I realized it was because of Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian (my lips are sealed) and it wasn't bad - I liked it. And whatever happened with Simon was UNNECESSARY OKAY? MY POOR BABY. It felt like that whole thing was written because we desperately needed to be reminded that writers have little sense of character preservation but maybe Clare didn't have the heart to see through with it and made things a bit too convenient.

Now why bother in the first place?

And, boy aren't I glad that I read the Infernal Devices. While I physically hoped that Jem/Tessa could have had more page-space, they were there at least. And Tessa called Jem "Zachariah"? I wanted to cry. WHY COULDN'T THE WORD JEM BE MENTIONED IN THE BOOK

Alright that was me venting out.

And the Blackthorns and Emma. Their bio-history was totally not needed. But I have a feeling it's because they are going to feature in Clare's next series so this was the intro.

This book could have been a lot worse. Books #4,5 dropped my expectations. But this one sort of redeems the entire series. If you have the patience to hang around till #6

View all my reviews

No comments:

Post a Comment

Add your graffiti here before you leave; this wall needs all the colour it can get. And check back, I always reply as promptly as the wifi allows me to. ;)