Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3) by Susan Dennard

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Overall Rating: 3 stars
Date Finished: August 16, 2016

I just didn’t have time to sit down and really read this as I would have liked so I ended up reading it little by little over a couple of days. There was a lot going on in this book but most of it was actually good. That being said, there a couple of things that frustrated me.

The first thing that frustrated me was Eleanor’s personality/relationships. In this book she spent a lot of time pushing everyone away. Usually they’re stupid and do that in the second book but come back better in the third book. In the last book Eleanor and Daniel were struggling to come to terms with her power and whether they would be together. And in this book they express their love and desire to be together, and yet they still spend most of the book pushing each other away.

Towards the end of the book things finally started to come together and Eleanor finally started to really pull herself together. Eleanor’s relationship with everyone started to improve, but that also created another small issue. As her relationships improved, that included her relationship with Oliver. There was so much hinting and vague comments that is started to seem like Oliver had fallen in love with Eleanor, which was a frustrating turn of events considering she was finally mending things with Daniel.

As we reach the climax there was a lot going on. There’s plenty of fighting and action but there is also a lot of important things that all happen very quickly and there were a lot that happened in that final battle that left me feeling unsatisfied.

Oddly enough it wasn't for the reason that most people were. Rather than how things ended with Daniel, I was frustrated with how things ended with Oliver. I understand why most people fixated on Daniel, but there was a lot of relationship building with Oliver, and not necessarily in a romantic sense. At the end when she released him they had a communion of sorts and came to understand one another and Eleanor felt so empty and lost without him. And yet, when he came back and gave up everything to help, I never felt like that relationship really reunited in a satisfying way. I don't mean that it has to be romantic, obviously she still loves Daniel, but not all love has to be romantic and there was clearly love between them and a tender relationship that I feel like kind of disappeared after he left which was very disappointing. He could never take Daniel's place, but he was dear to her as well and there should be some joy at having him back, rather than just sorrow for everything else.


Having said all that, overall is a was a good book, there were just a few things that left me wanting more.

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