Man, what a mess of a book.
(Spoilers under the cut.)
Before I get into what didn't work for me about this book, I will start with what I enjoyed. In general, I thought that most of the stuff about and involving Ronan was pretty interesting. The concept of his magic and his power has always been really inventive and original, and while the connection between him and Adam felt underdeveloped to me at times, their eventual relationship was lovely. Ronan was also the only character I ever felt had real stakes, or ever suffered genuine, lasting consequences for his actions (or lack thereof).
Part of why Ronan stands out to me like this is because my god, what was the point of any of that. What was the point of having four books of people talking about a curse and destiny and blah blah blah if you're never actually going to deliver on any of it? What is the point of having great power and a destiny if you never have to actually sacrifice? Yes, Gansey really thought he was going to die, but I as the reader never actually thought he wouldn't come back, and it had taken so long for the story to get to his death that by that point I didn't care either way.
There was no urgency to this book for me at all, which is a real problem when it's the final book in a YA urban fantasy series and time is running out and evil at least in theory is closing in. The final book of a series like this should also be when all the many plot and character threads suddenly start coming together and every new piece of the puzzle fits together until suddenly the truth of the overall picture is so overwhelming that it hits you over the head. A common flaw with final books in series is that the reader can sometimes complete the picture in their brain before the narrative itself does, and so the rhythm feels off. Here, the issue is that there is no cohesive larger picture at all, and it's clear that there never was one at all. It's like someone combined four different puzzles, all of which were of reasonably interesting pictures, and then tried to force them all together. Nothing fits well and there are still dozens of pieces that don't connect with anything at all and in the end it's not worth the time and effort to try to force it all together.
I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to take away from this story. And the epilogue, for me, made it clear that the author has no idea either. Ronan has changed, and Adam sort of has, but only sort of (and not entirely for the better, in my view), and Blue and Gansey are both as opaque as they've always been to me. None of them feel like they belong to either the 'real world' that we're supposed to believe this book is about, or the secret world of magic that they all belong to, either. Gansey died and was brought back to life, and as far as I can tell that had absolutely no impact on him as a person whatsoever. Or if it did, the author certainly didn't bother to show us what that impact was. That is terrible, terrible writing.
Apart from all of the structural issues, I also had a lot of problems with some of the underlying social themes of this book. Many of these problems existed in some of the earlier books to one degree or another, but they were impossible for me to ignore in this one.
The biggest single issue I had was with the character of Henry Cheng, who starts off as a fairly stereotypical token character of color but who quickly becomes a racist caricature. The other characters (the protagonists!) are also racist towards him and his group of Asian friends, which is presented as being funny? Unfortunate but hey that's just how asshole rich dudes/prep school guys are? It's both baffling and offensive.
For me that ended up making it harder to ignore other issues I have with the book and the universe we're presented with. Blue is the only girl in the entire series, pretty much, because she doesn't have any friends who aren't boys, and unlike the boys in her social circle, who each have a kind of magic, her sole power is being a conduit or a magnifier of power for other people's gifts. She is there to make other people matter rather than being powerful in her own right. She theoretically hates the wealth and privilege the Aglionby boys have while also coveting it, and in the end the appeal of wealth wins out. Is she planning on going to college post-high school? Who knows, but she somehow has enough money (and flexibility and assurances) that she can take a year to hike across the U.S. with two rich dudes.
Adam also manages to transcend his humble beginnings and demonstrates that the reason he's getting out of his trailer park life is because he's the only one who's special enough to try to leave in the first place. It doesn't feel real to me, but it sure does feel condescending.
Even Ronan, who for me is the most fully fleshed out character, exists in this sort of in between world to me. He's gay and he's in love with Adam, who as it turns out does love him back, but there's never any real examination of what it is for him to be gay beyond his attraction to Adam. We don't even know for sure if Adam is gay, or bi, or even what his feelings about that might be - Adam goes from being weirdly jealous and possessive of Blue and her relationship with Gansey to suddenly dating (or at least kissing) Ronan, and there's never any kind of emotional reckoning around that for any of them. I don't need all of my LGBT characters to be primarily focused on their sexual or gender identity, but even within the context of evil forces afoot I at least want there to be an acknowledgement of it. Their identities and character traits are paper thin, and while I'm able as a reader to color in a lot, there comes a point when I'm telling myself the story instead of the author.
Frankly, I wouldn't like a lot of what I've mentioned above even in a book that had a well-plotted arc, and characters with clear motivations and goals, and an internal mythology that's consistent and makes sense, but it would be easier for me to acknowledge and then look past those failings, for better or for worse. But when the pacing of a book has the consistency of molasses, and even the author seems uncertain about whose story exactly she's trying to tell, those sorts of failings rise to the surface of my awareness so quickly they're impossible to ignore. I wasn't completely sold by the first three books of the series, but there were three or four reveals that happened over the course of those books that made me think that perhaps the broader plot would at least deliver narratively and I could focus primarily on the overall arc. That did not happen.
Grade: D
(Spoilers under the cut.)
Before I get into what didn't work for me about this book, I will start with what I enjoyed. In general, I thought that most of the stuff about and involving Ronan was pretty interesting. The concept of his magic and his power has always been really inventive and original, and while the connection between him and Adam felt underdeveloped to me at times, their eventual relationship was lovely. Ronan was also the only character I ever felt had real stakes, or ever suffered genuine, lasting consequences for his actions (or lack thereof).
Part of why Ronan stands out to me like this is because my god, what was the point of any of that. What was the point of having four books of people talking about a curse and destiny and blah blah blah if you're never actually going to deliver on any of it? What is the point of having great power and a destiny if you never have to actually sacrifice? Yes, Gansey really thought he was going to die, but I as the reader never actually thought he wouldn't come back, and it had taken so long for the story to get to his death that by that point I didn't care either way.
There was no urgency to this book for me at all, which is a real problem when it's the final book in a YA urban fantasy series and time is running out and evil at least in theory is closing in. The final book of a series like this should also be when all the many plot and character threads suddenly start coming together and every new piece of the puzzle fits together until suddenly the truth of the overall picture is so overwhelming that it hits you over the head. A common flaw with final books in series is that the reader can sometimes complete the picture in their brain before the narrative itself does, and so the rhythm feels off. Here, the issue is that there is no cohesive larger picture at all, and it's clear that there never was one at all. It's like someone combined four different puzzles, all of which were of reasonably interesting pictures, and then tried to force them all together. Nothing fits well and there are still dozens of pieces that don't connect with anything at all and in the end it's not worth the time and effort to try to force it all together.
I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to take away from this story. And the epilogue, for me, made it clear that the author has no idea either. Ronan has changed, and Adam sort of has, but only sort of (and not entirely for the better, in my view), and Blue and Gansey are both as opaque as they've always been to me. None of them feel like they belong to either the 'real world' that we're supposed to believe this book is about, or the secret world of magic that they all belong to, either. Gansey died and was brought back to life, and as far as I can tell that had absolutely no impact on him as a person whatsoever. Or if it did, the author certainly didn't bother to show us what that impact was. That is terrible, terrible writing.
Apart from all of the structural issues, I also had a lot of problems with some of the underlying social themes of this book. Many of these problems existed in some of the earlier books to one degree or another, but they were impossible for me to ignore in this one.
The biggest single issue I had was with the character of Henry Cheng, who starts off as a fairly stereotypical token character of color but who quickly becomes a racist caricature. The other characters (the protagonists!) are also racist towards him and his group of Asian friends, which is presented as being funny? Unfortunate but hey that's just how asshole rich dudes/prep school guys are? It's both baffling and offensive.
For me that ended up making it harder to ignore other issues I have with the book and the universe we're presented with. Blue is the only girl in the entire series, pretty much, because she doesn't have any friends who aren't boys, and unlike the boys in her social circle, who each have a kind of magic, her sole power is being a conduit or a magnifier of power for other people's gifts. She is there to make other people matter rather than being powerful in her own right. She theoretically hates the wealth and privilege the Aglionby boys have while also coveting it, and in the end the appeal of wealth wins out. Is she planning on going to college post-high school? Who knows, but she somehow has enough money (and flexibility and assurances) that she can take a year to hike across the U.S. with two rich dudes.
Adam also manages to transcend his humble beginnings and demonstrates that the reason he's getting out of his trailer park life is because he's the only one who's special enough to try to leave in the first place. It doesn't feel real to me, but it sure does feel condescending.
Even Ronan, who for me is the most fully fleshed out character, exists in this sort of in between world to me. He's gay and he's in love with Adam, who as it turns out does love him back, but there's never any real examination of what it is for him to be gay beyond his attraction to Adam. We don't even know for sure if Adam is gay, or bi, or even what his feelings about that might be - Adam goes from being weirdly jealous and possessive of Blue and her relationship with Gansey to suddenly dating (or at least kissing) Ronan, and there's never any kind of emotional reckoning around that for any of them. I don't need all of my LGBT characters to be primarily focused on their sexual or gender identity, but even within the context of evil forces afoot I at least want there to be an acknowledgement of it. Their identities and character traits are paper thin, and while I'm able as a reader to color in a lot, there comes a point when I'm telling myself the story instead of the author.
Frankly, I wouldn't like a lot of what I've mentioned above even in a book that had a well-plotted arc, and characters with clear motivations and goals, and an internal mythology that's consistent and makes sense, but it would be easier for me to acknowledge and then look past those failings, for better or for worse. But when the pacing of a book has the consistency of molasses, and even the author seems uncertain about whose story exactly she's trying to tell, those sorts of failings rise to the surface of my awareness so quickly they're impossible to ignore. I wasn't completely sold by the first three books of the series, but there were three or four reveals that happened over the course of those books that made me think that perhaps the broader plot would at least deliver narratively and I could focus primarily on the overall arc. That did not happen.
Grade: D
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